Even though the number of black and Hispanic students entering college has increased dramatically over the last 30 years, students from these groups still lag well behind white students in earning college degrees, according to researchers at the University of California, Davis.

Michal Kurlaender, assistant professor of education at UC Davis, and co-author Erika Felts, a graduate student in sociology at UC Davis, presented their findings this morning at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in New York City. Their research will also appear in their forthcoming book, "Realizing Bakke's Legacy."

In its 1978 decision in "Regents of the University of California vs. Bakke," the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a higher education institution could consider race in admissions for the purpose of achieving a diverse student body. In 1996, California voters passed Proposition 209, ending consideration of race in public education; similar referendums have passed or are under consideration in other states.

Kurlaender and Felts found that between 1972 and 1992, the percentage of black high school graduates who entered college rose from 46 percent to 69.5 percent and the percentage of Hispanic high school graduates who went to college climbed from 47 percent to 70 percent. However, the college completion rate for both groups fell. In 1975, 38 percent of all blacks and 40 percent of all Hispanics who entered college completed their bachelor's degrees. By 2004, the percentages had dropped to 33 percent for blacks and 34 percent for Hispanics. The researchers based their conclusions on an analysis of data released in 2004 by the U.S. Department of Education and the National Center for Education Statistics.

Kurlaender cites a number of possible causes for the opposing trends. First, under-represented minority students entering college today are more likely than students 30 years ago to enter four-year colleges as transfer students from two-year colleges, to be among the first in their families to go to college and to attend college part-time. In addition, under-represented minorities are more likely to be low-income and dependent on financial assistance to complete their degrees, to be placed in remedial courses once they enter college and to attend institutions where faculty mentoring, class size and student participation in college activities may be less than optimal. All of these factors can contribute to low graduation rates.