Data systems must better collect information on multiracial and multiethnic students who comprise a growing share of the college-going population, according to a new report.
The portion of multiracial students enrolled in college more than doubled between 2011 and 2021, jumping from 2.1% to 4.3%, according to the report from the Institute for Higher Education Policy (IHEP). It’s projected to reach nearly 5% by 2031.
However, IHEP says higher education data systems have not kept up with the “complexity of students’ racial and ethnic identities.”
The data trend on multiracial students follows a general national trend. The report notes that the U.S. multiracial population nearly quadrupled between 2010 and 2020, growing from 9 million to 33.8 million. A driving factor is demographic shifts and improved Census methods that allow individuals to identify with more than one race, according to the report.
Undercounting students
Despite the figures about multiracial students, more can be done to more accurately identify students, IHEP says. For example, a common method to gather information on this population is to combine students into a catch-all “two or more races category,” it says. But in using the method, students who identify as both Black or African American and American Indian or Alaska Native would not be counted in either individual category, but rather in the two-or-more category, IHEP explains.
“Data practice like this undercount students who identify with multiple racial or ethnic groups and can lead to data suppression for small populations like American Indian or Alaska Native students,” the report says.
IHEP notes that the U.S. Education Department (ED) has an opportunity to better capture such data, observing that new federal standards require all federal agencies to develop and publish action plans by September 28 and implement them by March 28, 2029.
Different approaches
The report recaps a 2024 Office of Management and Budget directive that provides three approaches to capture data on multiracial students, along with their advantages and disadvantages. The first is called the “alone or combination” approach, where all students who identify with a racial or ethnic group are included. For example, students identifying as both White and Black or African American would be counted in both the “White alone or in combination” and the “Black or African American alone or in combination” category, the report explains.
A second approach would report all single-race categories along with certain combinations of race and ethnicity. As an example, students identifying as both Hispanic or Latino and Black or African American could be counted as Afro-Latino.
The third approach is a combined multiracial and multiethnic group, where all individuals who select more than one race or ethnicity are lumped into a single “two or more races” category, much like the current ED practice, the report says.
IHEP notes these are just starting points for consideration. It adds that the methods could also be modified or combined. For example, both “alone” and “alone in combination” categories could be used for better counts and maintain multually exclusive groups for analysis, it says.
The report provides a comparison of using the “alone or in combination” method compared to just the “alone” method, which highlights gaps between the approaches (See graph below). The “alone” category, in particular, does not fully capture data for smaller populations that have historically been undercounted, including American Indian or Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.
Making an investment
IHEP also recognizes the investment required to improve data capture. These include staff, technical infrastructure and support systems, as well as colleges, systems and states allocating resources for the efforts, the report says. The investments, it says, may include data system upgrades, professional development and training, and structures that support collaboration between institutional research, student support offices and leadership.
