Universities are businesses. They are in the business of education. There will be no change in the retention rate of black students at predominantly white universities until there is a demonstrated financial benefit (beyond costs) to doing so.

“The graduation rates for blacks, Latinos and Native Americans lag far behind the graduation rates for whites and Asians,” Newsweek recently reported.

This is unacceptable. And fixable.

Not all predominantly white universities have a serious graduation gap. Stanford University has an 11 percent black student population, with a 95 percent versus 90 percent white-to-black student graduation rate. Northwestern University’s is 94 percent to 89 percent. Columbia’s is 91 percent to 87 percent.

On the other side of the ledger, there is the University of Michigan, where only 65 percent of its mammoth 1,900 black student population can anticipate graduation. The University of Wisconsin has a 1.9 percent black student population and is mired in a 52 percent graduation rate. The University of Minnesota drags in with a paltry 38 percent black graduation rate.

The challenge around educating all of us is not about “doing the right thing.” Universities are already “doing the right thing” — for their board of regents and for their alumni who maintain their huge endowments. The question becomes: How do we increase our ethnic profile while holding on to our big-donor alumni?

For many universities, current costs-benefit analyses clearly demonstrate that it makes more economic sense to play around the edges of diversity or inclusivity and not make any substantial changes.

If you’re an administrator, it’s logical to think: Why should I upset the apple cart if I could just as simply move a few things around and still retain all the benefits? Until and unless it costs me more to retain the status quo than to change it, I will defend the retention of status quo. You can carry as many placards as you wish. It does not bother me. You are not building my next indoor football facility or my business school. Show me the money!

I agree that some of the reasons for the graduation gap have nothing to do with the universities themselves.

The unemployment rate for blacks currently stands at 15.8 percent, with 24.7 percent living below the poverty line. The median income for black households is 62 percent that of whites.

Almost 58 percent of black families live in metropolitan areas, often crime-ridden. Black parents are 11 percent less likely to hold at least a high school diploma than white parents. The school systems in poverty-stricken locales have poorer infrastructure, spend less per child, and have less effective teachers than those in more affluent areas. Since our black population tends to be heavily concentrated in these places, their access to appropriate prenatal and lifelong health, proper nutrition and good education is challenged.

But we all know that.

And I’m tired of hearing the excuse, “We’re doing everything that we can,” unless you want to complete the sentence by saying, “We’re doing everything that we can … to maintain status quo.” Be honest.

This is a business. And business is not about a social agenda unless a social agenda makes good business sense.

If you are really serious about increasing the retention rate of black students at predominantly white universities, demonstrate to the university that it is in its financial best interest to do so — and then show them how.

That’s the only language they speak.

Algernon Felice is CEO of Cultural Bridges LLC, a consulting firm that works with schools, school districts, universities, individuals and businesses in the creation of marketing strategies aimed at engaging social and ethnic minority populations. He holds a doctorate in counseling psychology from the University of Wisconsin, with a specialty in multicultural counseling. He can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.