Racial and Gender Differences in Graduate Degree Attainment

Last week JBHE reported new data on racial and gender differences in four-year college degree attainments. The data showed that while white men were significantly more likely than white women to hold a college degree, for African-Americans it is women who hold the edge.

Now we report on similar data for graduate degree attainments. In 2005, 12.1 percent of white males over the age of 25 had obtained a graduate degree. This was significantly higher than the figure for white women, which stood at 10.1 percent.

For blacks, the gender performance was once again reversed. For black men, 5.4 percent of all adults over the age of 25 had earned a graduate degree. For black women, 6.3 percent of all adults had a graduate degree.