Despite sustained efforts to improve undergraduate student support, inequitable outcomes persist for historically underrepresented and minoritized students in higher education. Research across the United States and Europe continues to document lower retention, achievement, and sense of belonging among underrepresented minority students, first-generation students, and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (Kinzie et al., 2008; Low & Kalender, 2024; Prior et al., 2022; Whitcomb & Singh, 2020). When reframed through an anti-deficit, asset-based perspective (Harper, 2010; Yosso, 2005), these patterns highlight students’ resilience and persistence despite navigating unwelcoming and complex institutional cultures. From this perspective, persistent and pervasive disparities in student success underscore systemic and structural failures rather than individual deficits.

Building on effective student support models such as advising and learning communities, institutions have an opportunity to adopt more systemic solutions that leverage students’ strengths and create belonging. Mentorship of undergraduate students is one such high-impact approach shown to foster persistence, belonging, and leadership development (Lopez et al., 2024; O’Donnell et al., 2015; Tachine et al., 2017). Like recent arguments for institutionalizing faculty mentorship (NCFDD, 2025), this presentation reframes undergraduate mentorship as essential infrastructure for advancing structural equity and argues for embedding care, cultural relevance, and relational accountability into institutional priorities, practices, and evaluation.

Using publicly available institutional data and an evidence-informed synthesis, this project analyzed strategic plans from the 23 campuses of the California State University (CSU) system, the 10 University of California (UC) campuses, and the 10 largest universities (by enrollment) in Europe and the UK. Findings revealed that while some universities (15 CSUs, 6 UCs, 4 European/UK) explicitly reference undergraduate mentorship in their strategic plans, many research-focused institutions do not. Ironically, these are the exact institutions that are positioned to provide undergraduates with state-of-the-art research training. Even where mentorship appears among stated priorities, practices are often informal, individually implemented, and considered extra-curricular, resulting in uneven access and inequitable outcomes.

High-quality mentorship fosters an environment of care, cultural relevance, and relationships, which requires dedicated time, training, and institutional resources (Lopez et al., 2024; Nuñez, 2007; Zambrana et al., 2015). Moreover, systematic evaluation is critical and should include clear metrics such as retention, graduation, belonging, and leadership outcomes. The presentation will present a synthesis that draws on culturally relevant pedagogy (Ladson-Billings, 1995) and multilevel intersectionality frameworks (Nuñez, 2014) to argue that integrating critical approaches to mentorship (see Lopez et al., 2024) within institutional infrastructure can promote structural equity by amplifying students’ cultural, relational, and navigational strengths to support their success. The presentation will conclude with a call to action and specific steps institutions can take to embed mentorship into priorities, practices, and evaluation.

Keywords: Higher education, equity, mentorship, anti-deficit.