The following Boston Globe article is informative about the type of funding initiatives designed to help minority students … Students naturally choose colleges that best support their financial, cultural and learning needs. This includes hispanic students living far away in Mississippi!
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/02/19/business/salem-state-higher-education-latino
But, funding is limited. Every demographic wants the college to provide supports, cultural events and bring the numbers of minorities up so that they don’t feel like a minority.
My own son chose Westield state college because the learning disabilities program sounded promising and the $11,000/year tuition /dorm price tag back in 2006 was relatively inexpensive. However, the program failed to provide the type of supports needed by people on the autism spectrum. He got overwhelmed and shut down …
I next assisted my son to succeed at passing the liberal arts requirements at north shore community college, followed by a science major at salem university where I have first hand knowledge of inadequate guidance and disability supports …
Given this – I have concerns about reports of federal funding being channelled to specific minority groups and having that money end up paying for infrastructure costs, hiring staff to bring in popular speakers? There are many minority groups in need of extra support and $ and i appreciate welcoming diverse students from lower income areas such as Chelsea … But just read the screenshots …
All students need to be more savvy about technology, math and the science-based fields- and students like my son who has aspergers syndrome could have been great at reading radiology or nuclear medicine -reports got denied acceptance at these programs because of his poor social and community skills .
Students with disabilities are just one of many demographics struggling to succeed. They are less likely to successfully advocate, creation of student clubs, demand relevant speakers etc. as the hispanic students described in this article are…
And students like my son are more likely to be tech geeks!
All students want to break barriers , and have federal funding help them do it… but as you can see from this article – money is limited and must be used wisely… my observation is that some marginalized groups (ie LGBTQ and Latinos) get special treatment on the North Shore- at the detriment of other demographics – and self righteous leaders get to decide who gets special treatment …
