The University of Wisconsin System’s Plan 2008 diversity effort, launched in 1998, has brought more students of color into the state’s universities but has failed to keep them there.
A progress report that the UW System Board of Regents will consider Thursday and Friday in Milwaukee shows that minority students increased from 7.5 percent to 9.4 percent of undergraduates during the nine-year period, while graduate and professional students of color increased from 8.9 percent to 9.4 percent.
However, the overall retention gap between students of color and white students increased 2 percentage points to 8.7 percent.