JBHE: Latest News for 6/21/07

The Socioeconomic Background of Black Students at Selective Colleges

A study authored by Professors Douglas S. Massey, Margarita Mooney, and Kimberly C. Torres of Princeton University and Camille Z. Charles of the University of Pennsylvania, which appears in a recent edition of the American Journal of Education, has analyzed the family backgrounds of the black students who enrolled at 28 selective colleges and universities. The results showed that the vast majority of black students at these selective colleges are not from low-income, inner-city, or rural black belt families. In fact, for native-born black students at these 28 selective colleges and universities, a remarkable 55.2 percent of their fathers are college graduates and 25 percent of their fathers hold a graduate degree. Fifty-seven percent of these students at selective colleges have mothers who had completed college and 26 percent have mothers who hold a graduate degree. These percentages are about triple the national average for all African Americans.

Furthermore, for native-born black students at these 28 selective institutions, 74 percent owned their home compared to less than half of all black families nationwide. The median value of the homes of these black students was nearly $200,000.

More than one quarter of the native-born black students at these selective colleges and universities come from families with annual incomes over $100,000. Nationwide, only 7 percent of all black households have incomes of more than $100,000.

Twenty-seven percent of the black students at these selective colleges and universities were graduates of private high schools. This is a level very similar to that of white students at these selective colleges and universities.