A Decade After African Americans Graduate From College: Where They Stand on Marriage, Voting Behavior, and Home Ownership

Recently, the U.S. Department of Education surveyed a group of black and white students who graduated from college in 1993. The survey explored how the students have fared on a wide variety of economic, educational, and social fronts since they earned their bachelor’s degree. Here are some of the highlights:

• More than 70 percent of the white 1992-93 college graduates were married in 2003. Only 52 percent of the African Americans who graduated from college in 1992-93 were married a decade later. A full one third of these African-American college graduates had never been married, compared to only 18 percent of white college graduates.

• Nearly 77 percent of 1992-93 white college graduates owned their home in 2003. For blacks who graduated from college in 1992-93, only 58.6 percent owned their home.

• Blacks with a college degree were slightly more likely than their white peers to have registered to vote. Nearly 85 percent of African Americans who graduated from college in 1992-93 voted in the 2002 midterm elections. For whites, 77 percent of 1992-93 college graduates voted in the 2002 elections. More than 21 percent of African-American college graduates attended political meetings or rallies compared to 15 percent of white college graduates.

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