Measuring the Performance of African Americans in Graduate Education

Last week JBHE reported that African-American college graduates with bachelor’s degrees were more likely than similarly educated whites to enroll in graduate school.

Despite greater enrollment rates, blacks were less likely than whites to actually earn a graduate degree. Nearly 63 percent of 1993 white college graduates who enrolled in graduate school had earned a degree by 2003. For blacks, the figure is 53.9 percent. Whites were more likely than blacks to have obtained a master’s or professional degree. But 5.1 percent of all 1993 African-American college graduates who had enrolled in graduate education had earned a doctorate by 2003. For whites, 4.5 percent had completed doctoral studies.

Ten years after receiving their bachelor’s degrees, blacks were far more likely to still be enrolled in graduate education than whites. Nearly one quarter of the 1993 African-American college graduates who had enrolled in graduate school during the following decade were still in school. For whites, only 13.7 percent were still enrolled.

Therefore, when we look at the 1993 college graduates who have either earned a graduate degree or are continuing to pursue their graduate studies, blacks come out ahead of whites. Nearly 24 percent of all 1993 white college graduates who entered graduate education left school without earning a degree. For blacks, 21.5 percent left graduate school without earning a degree.

Copyright © 2007. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.