Ensuring College Access and Success for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Students

The Campaign for College Opportunity is pleased to continue our Affirming Equity, Ensuring Inclusion, Empowering Action series, elevating the policies and practices that support targeted solutions for the college preparation, admission, affordability, and success of Latinx, Black, Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (NHPI), and American Indian/Alaska Native (AIAN) students. Our new brief, Ensuring College Access and Success for Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Students, outlines the imperative for higher education institutions and allies to center support for Asian American and NHPI students in order to address the historical racism and numerous barriers to access and success faced by these communities. 

The 2020 U.S. census revealed that Asian American and NHPI populations are among the fastest growing in the nation, with 24 million Asian American and 1.6 million NHPI residents. Despite a long history of anti-Asian sentiment and racism in the U.S, Asian American and NHPI students have been harmfully stereotyped as high-achieving, and as easily gaining access to and graduating from elite colleges and universities under the myth of the model minority. The model minority myth draws a wedge between Asian American and NHPI communities against other minoritized groups and masks the very real experiences that distinctive Asian American and NHPI subgroups encounter.

To meet the demands of our growing multiracial democracy and economy, we must understand and dismantle the barriers faced by Asian American and NHPI communities related to their ability to prepare for, access, enroll, and succeed in college with the culturally sensitive supports and services to ensure their belonging. We must continue to invest in programs, such as the U.S. Department of Education’s Asian American and Native American/Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions Program, to expand the capacity of colleges and universities nationwide to serve these students authentically.