Posse has three goals designed to address some critical issues of importance to institutions of higher education in the United States today:

1.) To expand the pool from which top colleges and universities can recruit outstanding young leaders from diverse backgrounds.

2.) To help these institutions build more interactive campus environments so that they can become more welcoming institutions for people from all backgrounds.

3.) To ensure that Posse Scholars persist in their academic studies and graduate so they can take on leadership positions in the workforce.

Goal 1. University admissions offices across the nation continue to search for ways to identify “non-traditional” candidates who might contribute greatly to and benefit greatly from their institutions. These institutions want to continue to increase access for students from diverse backgrounds. Understanding that traditional measures sometimes miss capable and promising students, Posse has developed an alternative evaluation strategy called the Dynamic Assessment Process (DAP), which has proven successful in identifying urban youth leaders who can succeed despite varying test scores. The Posse Foundation is helping more students from urban high schools to enter top colleges and universities. It is expanding the pool from which top colleges and universities can recruit outstanding students. It is supporting these students in their transition to campus life and helping them succeed.

Goal 2. Many colleges and universities experience a climate where students from different backgrounds find little opportunity to interact. The Posse Foundation is training students to hone their leadership skills so that they can help colleges and universities truly address diversity issues on campus.  The Posse Program is helping colleges and universities to look beyond their numbers and work on creating more welcoming environments for students from all backgrounds.  Posse Scholars enter universities equipped to promote dialogue. Maybe one day, universities won’t need Posses anymore.  Today they do.

Goal 3. Despite some improvement, college retention and completion rates for students from different cultural and racial backgrounds remain uneven. The Posse Program is helping guarantee that more students from non-traditional, diverse backgrounds, will graduate from the top institutions of higher education and will take on leadership positions in the workforce.  They will be doctors, artists, lawyers, teachers, managers, school superintendents, politicians, deans, and corporate leaders.  Over the long term, Posse graduates will begin to affect our workforce so that social and political policy change will occur with input from those whose backgrounds reflect more accurately the demographics of our cities and our country at large.

By the year 2025, the American population will be 54.6 percent non-Hispanic White, 18.7 percent Hispanic, 16.3 percent African American, 11.1 percent Asian American and others. As a group, minorities are increasing faster than the non-minority population and currently account for 60 percent of the total population growth. Unfortunately, people of color are still drastically underrepresented in the country’s top institutions of higher education—often because the standard measures used by admissions offices are culturally limited. However, with the new legal limitations related to affirmative action programs, admissions offices nationwide are faced with a conundrum. How can they continue to increase the pools of applicants from diverse backgrounds while maintaining their standards? Further, how can the campus experience be improved to prepare students for a culturally diverse workplace? Posse helps to answer these needs.

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