From California Watch

A national report released this week by financial aid guru Mark Kantrowitz finds minority students are less likely to win private scholarships or receive merit-based institutional grants than Caucasian students – a pattern that also holds true in California.

The analysis [PDF], based on 2003-04 and 2007-08 data for hundreds of thousands of students from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, found that nationally, Caucasian students are 40 percent more likely to win private scholarships than minority students.

Kantrowitz’s report did not drill down to individual states, but he provided California Watch with data from the Golden State. The figures show that white students here also receive a disproportionately greater share of private scholarship funding – albeit to a lesser degree than on the national level. Caucasians represent 44 percent of private scholarship recipients in California but only 41 percent of the undergraduate student population. Minority students, by contrast, represent 55 percent of scholarship recipients and 58 percent of undergraduates.

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