A Harvest of Good News on African Americans in Higher Education

Don’t be discouraged by recent setbacks in measures to advance African-American higher education. There has been important progress on many fronts.

Occasionally, readers complain that much of the content of The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education is punctuated with doom and gloom about the future of black opportunities and progress in higher education. News such as the retreat of race-sensitive admissions, outreach programs for black students, minority orientation programs geared toward blacks, and race-based scholarship awards is discouraging.

Declining financial aid coupled with budget cuts and large tuition increases at many colleges and universities because of the current economic crisis is also depressing black opportunities in higher education.

The historic opinion is that reaching equality in higher education for African Americans is like moving a mountain. Not so! There is much good news to report. Here is a summary of recent positive developments in the progress of blacks in higher education. The data is based on JBHE research and reports from the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Census Bureau.

Favorable Numbers in Nationwide Enrollment Statistics

• A new report from the U.S. Department of Education states that in 2007, the latest year for which complete data is available, there were 2.2 million black students enrolled in higher education in the United States. This is the highest level of enrollments for African Americans in history.

• Blacks now make up 13.1 percent of all students enrolled in higher education in the United States. Measured by percentage of population, blacks have now reached parity with whites.

• In 2007, the latest year for which statistics are available, there were more than 230,000 African Americans enrolled in degree-granting graduate schools. This is an all-time high. In 1990 there were 84,000 African Americans enrolled in graduate school, barely more than a third of black enrollments today.

• Older blacks are more likely than older whites to be enrolled in college. According to a report from the U.S. Census Bureau, 12 percent of the black population in the 25 to 35 age group were enrolled in higher education. In contrast, only 9.8 percent of all whites in this age group were enrolled in higher education.

• The Department of Education reports that there are nearly 1.8 million African Americans enrolled in postsecondary career and technical education programs. Blacks make up 16.6 percent of all students enrolled in these programs.

• In 2008 blacks made up 6.1 percent of all students enrolled in Advanced Placement courses in high school. These courses are equivalent to introductory courses at the college level. A decade ago blacks made up 3.8 percent of the students in these courses.

• Today almost one third of all African Americans ages 18 to 24 are enrolled in higher education. A generation ago in 1981 less than 20 percent of all blacks in this age group were enrolled.

• Over the past decade the number of students taking the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) has doubled. The number of black GMAT test takers is up 26 percent over the past four years alone.

•  U.S. Department of Education data shows that in 2006 there were 18,000 African Americans enrolled in bachelor’s degree programs in nursing. They made up 12 percent of all undergraduate nursing students. This is a marked improvement since 1990. At that time there were 6,862 blacks enrolled in undergraduate nursing programs. They made up 9.9 percent of all nursing students.

Good News at Particular Colleges and Universities

• Harvard University calls the Class of 2013, which will matriculate this coming fall, the most racially diverse in its history. Most notable is the fact that 10 percent of the incoming class is African American. Black student yield was 71 percent in 2009, up from 64 percent a year ago.

• The original charter of Rice University prohibited the admission of black students. This was not rescinded until 1965. In recent years large numbers of black students have enrolled at Rice. The number of blacks applying to Rice this year is up nearly 13 percent from a year ago. Preliminary figures show that there will be 65 blacks in this fall’s entering class. This would be an all-time record number of incoming black students.

• The University of Missouri at Columbia reports that black enrollments increased by 27.5 percent in the 2008-09 academic year. The number of black freshmen on campus was the highest in university history.

• At Indiana University in Bloomington there are 1,749 black students enrolled in the 2008-09 academic year, the highest number ever recorded. Black enrollments were up 5 percent from a year ago.

• At the University of Kansas black freshman enrollments increased 28 percent in the 2008-09 academic year. The number of African-American students on campus was the highest in the university’s history.

• At the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa black freshman enrollments were up a whopping 37 percent in 2008-09. Blacks made up 10.3 percent of all first-year students.

• The University of Georgia reports that there were 381 black freshman students in its 2008-09 entering class. This was the largest number of black freshmen at the University of Georgia since 1995.

• The University of Kentucky reports that it enrolled more African-American freshmen in the fall of 2008 than at any time in its history. There were 341 black first-year students at the university this past fall, up from 258 a year earlier. This is an increase of more than 32 percent over the previous year. Blacks made up 8.4 percent of the freshman class. This is a significant level in view of the fact that blacks are just 7.2 percent of the overall Kentucky population.

• There are now 29 colleges that are members of the Council for Christian Colleges at which black enrollments are 10 percent or more. This is more than triple the number in 1997.

• This fall Carnegie Mellon, the highly selective university in Pittsburgh, will have the largest number of incoming black students in its history. Preliminary figures show that there will be 105 black freshmen at Carnegie Mellon this fall, up from 79 a year ago. In 2008 blacks made up 5.3 percent of the entering class. This year, blacks will be 7.4 percent of the freshman class.

Solid Progress in Degree Attainments

• At the time of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, at best, 10,000 American blacks — one in 1,000 — were college educated. There are more than 4.5 million African Americans alive today who hold a four-year college degree.

• In 2008, 19.6 percent of all African Americans over the age of 25 held a four-year college degree. This figure has increased significantly from 13.8 percent in 1996 and 11.3 percent in 1990.

• Blacks have made solid progress in attaining two-year associate’s degrees. In 2007 more than 90,000 African Americans were awarded two-year degrees. This is up more than 50 percent from the year 2000.

• In 2007 the number of African Americans earning bachelor’s degrees was the highest in this nation’s history. Blacks earned 146,653 four-year bachelor’s degrees from American colleges and universities in 2007. The number of blacks earning bachelor’s degrees was nearly 2.5 times the number of bachelor’s degrees earned by blacks in 1990. (See page 64 of this issue for more details on black progress in degree attainment.)

• In the 2006-07 academic year blacks earned 62,574 master’s degrees at U.S. colleges and universities. Since 2000 the number of African Americans earning master’s degrees has increased by more than 74 percent. Since 1990 the number of blacks who win master’s degree awards each year has quadrupled.

•  In the 2006-07 academic year blacks earned 6,474 professional degrees in fields such as law, medicine, dentistry, and podiatry. The number of blacks receiving professional degrees each year has more than doubled since 1980.

• A report prepared by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago finds that in 2007, 1,821 blacks were awarded doctoral degrees. This is just short of the all-time high. In 1990 the black share of all doctoral awards was 3.6 percent. That has now grown to 6.6 percent, a showing of significant progress.

Good News on Graduation Rates

• The black student college graduation rate has risen by six percentage points over the past five years.

• There are now 12 high-ranking colleges and universities with a black student graduation rate of 90 percent or higher.

• There are now 40 high-ranking colleges and universities where the black student graduation rate trails the white student graduation rate by eight percentage points or less. Seven years ago there were only 16 high-ranking colleges and universities where the graduation rate gap was eight percentage points or lower.