Women Students at Black Colleges Academically Outperform Their Male Peers

At many black colleges and universities women make up 60 percent or more of all enrollments. But the percentage of women students on the honor roll at these institutions is often higher than the female percentage of total enrollments.

JBHE surveyed eight black colleges and universities. At all eight, black women make up a larger percentage of students on the honor roll than their percentage in the student body. The most significant difference was found at Tuskegee University. There, black women make up 57 percent of the student body but 72 percent of the students on the honor roll. At Clark Atlanta, women make up 70 percent of the student body but they are 84 percent of students on the honor roll. At Wilberforce University in Ohio, women make up 59 percent of the student body but they are 71 percent of the students on the honor roll.

At Xavier University, which has a large number of students enrolled in premed programs, black women are 75 percent of the student body and 81 percent of the honor roll students. This is the smallest difference among the eight schools in our survey.

Copyright © 2006. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.