* In September, The Southern Education Foundation released its much-anticipated report Miles To Go, The study, which examined higher education state-by-state, concluded that despite more than two decades of hard-fought desegregation efforts, African American students in the south have enjoyed only meager gains in access to public four-year institutions. (Sept. 17, 1998)

* Following in the path of U.S. News & World Report's annual college ranking, the editors and publisher of Black Enterprise and a professor from Johns Hopkins University unveiled their ranking of the top 50 colleges for African American students. Spelman and Morehouse topped the list, with Stanford University being the only traditionally White institution to make the top 10. (Dec. 24, 1998)

Students

* While the number of White students receiving college degrees has stayed steady for the past five years, the number of African-American, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American degree recipients has soared, according to the Black Issues Top 100 Degree Producers. The number of African-Americans receiving bachelor's degrees is increasing at a rate of 5.6 percent a year. (July 9, 1998)

* While the aggregate number of minority students attending Texas colleges did not change dramatically in the year following Hopwood, many fewer were admitted by the state's most elite institutions. (May 14, 1998)

* The first undergraduate class admitted to the University of California-Berkeley after the state passed Prop. 209 had 1,079 fewer minority students for its fall class, with the most substantial decline occurring among African-American students. Berkeley turned away 800 minority students who had SAT scores of 1200 or more and GPAs of 4.0. Though not as extreme, similar decreases in minority admissions were found at U.C.-Los Angeles. (April 16, 1998)