Blacks Are Making Significant Strides in Graduate School Enrollments

A new report from the Council of Graduate Schools shows that African Americans have made considerable progress in graduate school enrollments.

The report states that in the fall of 2009 there were 41,519 African Americans who enrolled for the first time in graduate programs at U.S. colleges and universities. Blacks make up 12 percent of all new non-foreign graduate school enrollees. Of the new African-American students in graduate school, 70.8 percent were black women.

The council also reported that there were 179,301 African Americans enrolled in all graduate programs in the United States. They made up 13.6 percent of all domestic graduate school students. Black women accounted for 72.1 percent of the total African-American graduate school enrollment in 2009.

Black progress in graduate school enrollments has been spectacular. The council’s figures show that, over the past decade, black first-time enrollments in graduate school have increased at a 9.7 percent annual rate. This is nearly triple the rate of increase for white first-time graduate students.

Over the past decade, total black enrollments in graduate school have increased at an annual rate of 9.5 percent. For whites, the average annual increase in graduate school enrollments was 2.1 percent.

Readers can download the complete report by clicking here.

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