A Snapshot of African American Enrollments in Higher Education in the Fall of 2017

A new report from the U.S. Department of Education offers data on fall 2017 enrollments at Title IV institutions of postsecondary education. Title IV institutions are all educational entities that have been approved to participate in federal student financial assistance programs for higher education.

According to data in the report, there were 20,135,159 students enrolled at these Title IV institutions in the fall of 2017. Of these, there were 2,489,088 African Americans in this group. They made up 12.4 percent of the total enrollments.

African Americans were 11.5 percent of total enrollments in state-operated institutions of higher learning. Blacks made up 11.2 percent of total enrollment in nonprofit, private colleges and universities. But African Americans made up more than one quarter of the 1.3 million students enrolled at for-profit private educational institutions.

There were 1,265,266 African Americans enrolled in four-year undergraduate programs. They made up 11.7 percent of all students in four-year undergraduate programs. There were slightly more than 831,000 African Americans enrolled in two-year programs. They made up 13.7 percent of all students in this group.

There were slightly more than 3 million students enrolled in graduate programs at Title IV institutions. There were 333,153 African Americans in this group, making up 11.1 percent of the total. Blacks were 28.4 percent of the students enrolled in graduate programs at for-profit universities.

The full report, Enrollment and Employees in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2017; and Financial Statistics and Academic Libraries, Fiscal Year 2017, may be downloaded by clicking here.

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1 COMMENT

  1. “There were 333,153 African Americans in this group, making up 11.1 percent of the total. Blacks were 28.4 percent of the students enrolled in graduate programs at for-profit universities.” Serious attendance percentage increase…for profit = higher cost and higher loan debt for higher percentage of AA seeking to obtain graduate degrees..the plot thickens

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