Study Finds That Graduates of Black Colleges Tend to Have Better Jobs But Are Paid Less Than Black Graduates of Predominantly White Universities

A new study by Terrell L. Strayhorn, an assistant professor in the department of educational psychology and counseling at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, finds that graduates of historically black colleges and universities tend to have higher status jobs than black graduates of predominantly white educational institutions. But Dr. Strayhorn’s analysis of the occupational status of nearly 72,000 African-American college graduates showed that graduates of HBCUs typically had lower salaries than blacks who graduated from predominantly white institutions. His data, published in the January issue of The Journal of Higher Education, shows that graduates of HBCUs, on average, had salaries that were $3,000 lower than blacks who graduated from universities where the majority of students are white.

Dr. Strayhorn is a graduate of the University of Virginia, where he also earned a master’s degree in educational policy. He earned his doctorate in higher education from Virginia Tech.

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