A national report on states' performance in higher education graded Utah above average in a range of categories. But the yawning gap between the number of whites and Hispanics who attend college in Utah, and the declining affordability of higher education are alarming to education policymakers.

The United State is entering a state of "emergency," with its competitive edge hanging in the balance, said Patrick Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, in summing up his organization's biennial "Measuring Up" report. The most educated generation in U.S. history is beginning to retire, but young Americans are not chasing college degrees the way their parents and grandparents did.

"These 78 million baby boomers are going to leave the work force. The smaller groups have to be educated in higher proportions just to keep up," Callan said in a teleconference with reporters. "The country has not come to grips with the implications about how competitive the world has become. ... We have a disproportionate share of the best institutions in the world. That's led us to be somewhat complacent."

Callan is concerned that the U.S. will continue to fall behind if more resources aren't diverted to higher education.

"Except for affordability, we see some modest progress, but this progress doesn't match the magnitude of the challenges we face, nor does it match what other countries are doing," he said. "Even states with high performance have gaps based on ethnicity and income."

In Callan's report, Utah scored Bs in four categories: preparing high schoolers for college (91 percent graduation rate); college participation rates (34 percent); rates of completion (49 percent within six years); and attainment rates (29 percent of those aged 25 to 64 hold a bachelor's).

But Utah officials see plenty to worry about in this rosy picture, particularly in college participation. Since the early 1990s, the number of 19-year-olds in college has dropped by 14 percent and the participation gap between whites and Hispanics has widened into the nation's largest. While 45 percent of whites ages 18 to 24 have attended college, only 16 percent of Hispanics have.

"Those are concerning numbers. Is Utah drifting toward being a low-wage Third-World-type of state that is attractive to call centers and not high-paying jobs?" asked William Sederburg, Utah's commissioner of higher education. "This huge gap is a moral and ethical challenge to all of society."

Community college should be a gateway to higher education in Utah, but instead it can be prohibitively expensive for low-income families and ethnic minorities. That's because Salt Lake Community College and other two-year schools are not supported by local property taxes, as is the case in most states, so they rely on tuition, Sederburg said.

Compounding this problem is Utah's poor support for need-based financial aid. For every dollar the federal government spends on Pell grants to Utah students, the state spends only eight cents -- near the lowest nationally.

Utah scored an F in affordability, as did nearly all other states.

bmaffly@sltrib.com