The Gender Gap in Master’s and Professional Degree Awards to African Americans

In last week’s edition, JBHE reported the large gender gap in bachelor’s degree awards to African Americans. The gender gap is even wider among black master’s degree recipients. In the 2003-04 academic years, black women earned 36,004 master’s degrees compared to 14,653 for black men. Thus, black women accounted for 71 percent of all master’s degrees awarded to African Americans.

The gender gap in professional degree awards for African Americans is large but not as wide as in bachelor’s and master’s degree attainments. In 2004 black women earned 62 percent of all professional degrees awarded to African Americans.

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