{"id":6460,"date":"2022-12-19T08:00:52","date_gmt":"2022-12-19T14:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ele.local\/?p=6460"},"modified":"2023-08-09T06:42:25","modified_gmt":"2023-08-09T11:42:25","slug":"the-msi-isnt-a-monolith-defining-6-kinds-of-minority-serving-institutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everylearnereverywhere.org\/es\/blog\/the-msi-isnt-a-monolith-defining-6-kinds-of-minority-serving-institutions\/","title":{"rendered":"The MSI Isn’t a Monolith. Defining 6 Kinds of Minority-Serving Institutions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The term Minority-Serving institutions (MSI) is often used generically for all colleges and universities whose student bodies include a high percentage of a particular racial or ethnic group. This bundling of all MSIs together obscures significant variations on their mission, origins, and current context. It also inaccurately suggests that all the so-called \u201cunderrepresented\u201d students enrolled in MSIs have similar needs and strengths or that all MSIs are similarly designed and oriented to serve them effectively.<\/p>\n

Each type of MSI is defined by a mix of their historical origins and their eligibility for various forms of federal funding. As of 2016, there were over 700 MSIs<\/a> under the definitions below, enrolling over five million undergraduate and graduate students. Another 300 may be counted soon as MSIs, as their enrollment demographics change.<\/p>\n

Some MSIs are majority Black or Indigenous, and some are defined as an MSI when 10 percent of the student body is Asian American or Pacific Islander. Some MSIs, like tribal colleges and universities, have been designed with racial equity as part of their founding mission, but many others were founded as exclusively white colleges and have steadily enrolled more racially and ethnically minoritized students over time.<\/p>\n

The \u201cserving\u201d part of the MSI label is also misleading. The definitions below rest on the number of racially and ethnically minoritized students who are enrolled, not on how effectively or how well the institution meets the needs of those students. As we\u2019ve noted elsewhere<\/a>, it\u2019s not uncommon for colleges and universities to increase enrollment for minoritized students without necessarily increasing support for them.<\/p>\n