Education
&
More Than 4.5 Million African Americans
Now Hold a Four-Year College Degree
T
oday nearly 4.6 million African Ame- degrees, an even larger share of their total
ricans hold a four-year college degree. in bachelor’s degree attainments.
Yet the racial gap in degree attain- Black men continue to have a lead over
ments remains large and it does not ap- black women in their numbers of professi-
pear to be shrinking. onal degrees. Approximately 88,000 black
Another serious blemish on this enco- men have a professional degree in the Uni-
uraging news is the fact that a large and ted States today compared to 62,000 black
fast-growing majority of these degrees women. But black women are closing the
earned by African Americans have been gap. As we show on page 64 of this issue
earned by black women. of JBHE, black women now earn nearly
At the time of the Harlem Renaissan- two thirds of all new professional degrees
ce in the 1920s, about 10,000 American earned by African Americans. Therefore,
blacks — one in 1,000 — were college it will only be a few years before black
educated. The editor of this journal, who women overtake black men in the total
was born in 1924, points out that a black number of professional degrees held by
child born that same year had about as living African Americans.
much chance of completing four years of Black men continue to hold the lead in
college as he had of playing shortstop for doctorates but here too the gap is closing
the Boston Red Sox. Today the world is rapidly. Today black women hold 65,000
different. There are more than 4.5 million of the 136,000 doctorates held by living
African Americans alive today who hold a African Americans. But black women
four-year college degree. now earn 65 percent of all new doctorates
The breakdown is as follows: Accor- awarded to African Americans. Therefore,
ding to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are the overall gender gap in favor of black
3,215,000 blacks in this country who have men is likely to evaporate in the near fu-
a bachelor’s degree. And there are an ad-
The Large Gender Gap in
ture.
ditional 1,078,000 African Americans
African-American Degree
who have both a four-year college de-
The Outlook for the Future:
gree and a master’s degree. An additional
Attainments
Black Women’s Lead Is Likely
150,000 blacks hold a professional degree There is important and indeed some
in fields such as law, business, and me- very bad news: Black women have
to Widen
dicine. Another 136,000 Afri-can Ame- built a huge lead over black men in col- Today black women hold a large lead
ricans have ob-tained a doctorate. Over- lege degree attainments. Today there are over black men in enrollments in almost
all, 4,579,000 African Americans possess 2,670,000 black women with a four-year all undergraduate and graduate programs.
a four-year college degree or higher. degree or better. This compares to only And this gender gap has grown over the
This is breathtaking progress. 1,909,000 black men. Therefore, it turns past 30 years. Most important, black wo-
In 2008, 19.6 percent of all African out that black women account for almost men have a college graduation rate that is
Amer-icans over the age of 25 held a col- 58 percent of all the African Americans significantly higher than the rate for black
lege degree. This figure has in-creased who have completed four years of college men. This current and growing enrollment
significantly from 13.8 percent in 1996 or more in our country. gender gap among African Americans, co-
and 11.3 percent in 1990. For those African Americans who have upled with a far higher college graduation
Despite the good news, the data still only a bachelor’s degree but no higher rate for black women compared to black
shows that blacks must continue to travel degree, black women have an even larger men, means that in future years, the gender
a huge distance before they reach parity lead. There are 1,874,000 black women gap in African-American degree attain-
with white Americans in higher education. with a bachelor’s degree compared to ments is certain to grow even wider. The
Overall, 32.6 percent of the non-Hispanic 1,341,000 black men. most serious news is that if present trends
white population over the age of 25 holds Some 669,000 black women hold a continue, a generation from now black wo-
a college degree compared to 19.6 percent master’s degree compared to 409,000 men with a four-year college degree will
of adult blacks. This percentage gap has black men. Thus, black women hold 62 outnumber black men with a bachelor’s
remained steady in recent years. percent of all African-American master’s degree by a ratio of 2 to 1.
Source: Journal of Blacks in Higher Education
66
www.blackeoejournal.com The Black E.O.E. Journal
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