A-Students Resorting to Plan B : Education: Many black and Latino high school graduates have the grades but not the money to pursue their degrees right away, experts say.

Senior Jessica Medina of Sylmar High School has worked part- and full-time jobs for three years and has taken three years of math, science and languages in the hope she would study journalism in college. But Medina, 18, an avid reader, will probably not enroll next fall.

“My dad can’t afford to send me,” she said.

Across town in South Central Los Angeles, senior Milo Burr of Locke High School has worked part time and has taken four years of math, three years of science and two years of languages to fulfill his dream to study electronics. But Burr, also 18, will not attend college next fall, either.

“My family can’t help me,” he said, “and I don’t have enough money to afford college.”

Medina plans to enlist in the Marines; Burr has joined the Army and leaves July 12 for a North Carolina boot camp.

They are part of what experts see as an alarming national trend: Latinos and blacks who qualify for college but do not go.

A study by the nonprofit American Council of Education reports that between 1976 and 1988, college enrollment of low-income Latino high school graduates ages 18 through 24 dropped from 50% to 35%. Enrollment of low-income blacks in the same age group fell from nearly 40% to 30%, according to the council, a Washington lobbying organization for 2,000 colleges and universities. The decline in enrollment among middle-income blacks was even greater, dipping from 53% to 36%.

College enrollment figures for graduates in the Los Angeles Unified School District may be even lower.

About 8% of Latino seniors and 12% of black seniors enrolled in the University of California and California State University systems during the fall of 1986 and ‘87, the most recent years for which figures are available. That figure compares to about 18% for all city school district students. There are no statistics on local Latinos and blacks attending all colleges.

The American Council of Education report cited the lack of financial resources as partly to blame for the enrollment decline. It also blamed the failure of need-based federal Pell Grants to keep pace with tuition increases.

The report’s author, Reginald Wilson, said in an interview that since Pell Grants were instituted in 1972, the average cost of tuition at public colleges and universities has doubled to about $4,000 a year.

Meanwhile, the maximum Pell Grant increased from $1,800 to only $2,300, and the government tightened the eligibility requirements.

“It means that even students who are eligible for the Pell Grant must take out a loan to cover tuition,” Wilson said. “And minority and low-income people are the least likely to take out loans.”

“Their families are less likely to have developed a relationship with a lending institution,” said Deborah J. Carter, a research associate on the report. “The family income may be only $10,000 or $15,000 annually, and if a youngster has a debt of $10,000, that seems like a huge amount.

“Minority youngsters are also less certain than whites that once they graduate from college they will obtain a job that will enable them to repay the money.”

The report also attributed the decline in minority enrollment to competition from the military for black students.

“The military services are the most racially and ethnically integrated institutions in our society, both in terms of numbers and the prestigious positions minorities hold,” Wilson said.

“An 18-year-old African-American kid looking at college or the service will see Gen. Colin Powell (chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), but won’t see many African-American presidents of colleges or universities.”

The report added that rising college admission standards contributed to the decline in enrollment. Between 1975 and 1985, nearly 30 states increased undergraduate admissions criteria for public colleges and universities, Wilson said.

“Black and Hispanic students do not do as well as whites on SAT and college entrance exams and also have a somewhat lower grade-point average,” Carter said. “So if you are going to raise your standards, who are you cutting out?”

Wilson said increasing the number of Pell Grants could revitalize college admissions among Latinos and blacks.

“Not only should grants be available to all students who need them,” he said, “(but) we suggest that eligible students receive only grants during their first two years so they do not have loans hanging over their heads.”

Wilson also said inner-city school districts could help minorities attend college by providing classes that satisfy the stiffer entrance requirements.

“Many inner-city schools do not have the physical facilities, the state-of-the-art equipment or the trained teachers to offer courses the universities are requiring,” he said.

He recalled a recent newspaper story that compared a top-notch high school chemistry lab in the wealthy Detroit suburb of Grosse Point to an inner-city lab that lacked even Bunsen burners. The difference was between “contemporary and 19th-Century chemistry,” he said.

Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Leonard Britton said the decline in college enrollment among blacks and Latinos seems “more pronounced” in recent years.

Britton said the district, whose students are 62% Latino and 16% black, offers many programs to encourage college attendance.

If he had the funds, he said, he would add “a very extensive career and educational guidance program starting in grade school. We would explore lots of careers and what it takes to go into them. It’s a little late (to get them into college) once they get into junior and senior high school.

“Without question we do not have the funds to do the personal and academic counseling we would like,” he said. “I have told my staff we could quadruple our counseling staff throughout the system and we would just be approaching our threshold of need.”

Medina and Burr need no counseling on the importance of college. Both are joining the service to earn benefits to pay for their education.

Burr, whose father works on the General Motors assembly line in Van Nuys and whose mother holds an office job, says the Army will train him in electronics during his five-year enlistment.

“I thought about taking out loans to go to college,” he said, “but my parents told me, ‘After you get out you’ll be working so hard to repay them that you’ll wish you’d never borrowed.’

“In the Army I can get free room and board and I’ll be able to travel,” he said. “Plus, I’ll get money for college and learn a trade in case I do not make it in college.”

Staff Sgt. James Luckey, an Army recruiter in Los Angeles, said the Army will pay 75% of the tuition for any college classes Burr attends while in the service.

If Burr contributes $100 a month during his first 12 months of service, he is eligible for a $25,200 grant on completion of his enlistment. As long as he remains a full-time student, he can receive $700 a month for 36 months spread over four academic years.

The Defense Department has no figures on how many former soldiers use their educational benefits.

Medina did not earn enough to pay for college in three years of part- and full-time work in a doughnut shop and as a nurse’s assistant in a mental hospital. She says her father, a painter, and her mother, a school cafeteria worker, cannot supply the money she lacks.

She is considering several branches of the service, including the Marines. Her family thinks being a Marine may be too rough for a woman and that she will be giving up four years unnecessarily.

“Maybe it’s true,” she said. “But I have many friends who have graduated high school. We all have the same dreams of graduating college and having a great career.

“But after they graduated high school they just got a normal job and forgot about college. And I do not want to do that. I really want to go continue my dream.”

She would be the first member of her family to attend college. The Marines will pay 75% of the tuition for any classes she attends while in the military. If she makes a $1,200 contribution, after four years in the military she will be eligible for $10,800, or $300 a month for 36 months.

Several counselors at Los Angeles schools said parental encouragement can help students such as Medina succeed.

One counselor said that when he invited 1,000 parents to a college information night a few years ago, only four showed up. “There’s definite apathy and lack of parental involvement,” he said.

After studying the problem nationwide, Wilson disagrees.

“Family factors make a difference in college attendance,” he said. “But most surveys of minority parents show that they hold education in high esteem, particularly as a way of getting out of the ghetto.

“That bumps into realities such as the increasingly higher costs of college and the higher requirements for admission.

“The aspirations have not changed. The (high school) graduation rates of American minorities are steadily going up. But there is a difference between being able to go to a free public high school and a college or university that you have to pay for.”