Six-year graduation rates of minorities are lagging significantly behind those of nonminorities at Iowa’s three major universities, the regents’ annual report on graduation and retention rates said Tuesday, and the board said it hopes the school’s provosts will work together to come up with a solution.

Iowa State’s and the University of Iowa’s minority six-year graduation rate is nearly 12 percent lower than that of nonminority students, while the University of Northern Iowa has an even wider gap of 16.7 percent, according to graduation rates of students who entered the regent institutions in 2000.

Neither number is good enough, board members say, and something needs to be done to close the achievement gap.

“As far as minority rates are concerned, Iowa has not really improved in closing the gap [between minority and nonminority graduation rates],” regent member Teresa Wahlert said.

Iowa Board of Regents President Michael Gartner said statistics showing that minority athletes graduate at a higher rate than nonathlete minorities demonstrate there are practices in place that work and that similar techniques could be used for all students.

“We know there are some things that work, and we should be embracing those things on a campuswide level,” Gartner said.

U of I Provost Michael Hogan said the problem may not be simply a racial one, but a socioeconomic one, and resources are not available to universities to offer the same help to the entire student body as athletic departments have the ability to offer to student athletes.

“If we had the resources to provide every minority the resources that are available to every student athlete, we might be able to see better [graduation] numbers overall,” Hogan said.