The Iowa State Board of Regents targeted the decrease in minority student enrollment and retention rates at Wednesday’s board meeting.

“We have to look deeply and carefully at this problem,” Iowa State President Martin Jischke said. “This is a complicated problem, and the answers are not simple.”

He said the university needs to do a better job recruiting and offering financial aid to underrepresented groups, which include African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans.

“Once they come, retaining is the key,” Jischke said. “That is the biggest problem.”

He said there are not high enrollment rates among minorities in agriculture, engineering and the sciences.

Jischke and University of Iowa President Mary Sue Coleman said attention to the issues has to be provided even at a young age.

“It is a much larger problem than just minority groups. They have to start out with the idea that ‘I am going to college,'” Coleman said, adding that if the universities partnered with elementary schools, middle schools and high schools, progress could be made.

“Enrollment and retention is not going to double without K-12 help,” Jischke said, calling on the board to help the regent universities strengthen their relationships with those schools.

Regent Jim Arenson said he does not believe the problem should be solved through partnership.

“I don’t agree that we should look to the outside [to solve these problems],” Arenson said. “I believe [the universities] can do better.”

Jischke said the board needs to tackle the problem.

“This has to be taken on as a challenge for the whole state,” Jischke said.

Jischke also pointed out that ISU needs to work on freshman retention rates.

He said more than 80 percent of the freshman now return. However, he said he would like the figure to be closer to 90 percent.

Jischke said learning communities in the residence halls can help fix this problem.

He said a learning community is established by placing students with similar majors in the same residence halls and classes, with the hope that a better learning experience will be achieved.

He said there were 42 of these communities with 530 students last year, and those numbers have increased to 59 learning communities and 1,357 students participating this year.

He hopes to add $500,000 in funding per year during the next three years to help these communities grow.

“In the nearly eight years I have been here, the university has made steady progress,” Jischke said. “We are very, very pleased with this progress.”

Another issue discussed at the meeting was ISU’s high job placement rates among graduates.

Jischke said strategic planning attracts many companies to job fairs.

“One of the reasons we have won [businesses coming to ISU instead of other schools] is because we can articulate where we are headed,” Jischke said. “The strategic planning has helped with the job placement of students.”