Ethnicity Matters Rethinking How Black Hispanic and Indian Students Prepare for and Succeed in College focuses on four model programs that are highly effective in preparing students from underrepresented groups for college and in supporting these students through baccalaureate degree completion. The four model programs serve students from those ethnic groups that face the most serious problems of underrepresentation in American higher education African Americans Latinos and American Indians. What sets these four programs apart from most other minority college recruitment and retention efforts is that they are built on this premise Ethnic identity plays an empowering role in educational achievement.