Black Student College Graduation Rates Inch Higher But...

Black Student College Graduation Rates Inch Higher But a Large Racial
Gap Persists

Nationwide, the black student college graduation rate remains at a
dismally low 43 percent. But the college completion rate has improved by
four percentage points over the past three years. As ever, the
black-white gap in college graduation rates remains very large and
little or no progress has been achieved in bridging the divide.

(The full text of this article is published in the Winter 2006/2007
issue of The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education.)


Throughout the nation, black enrollments in higher education have
reached an all-time high. But a more important statistical measure of
the performance of blacks in higher education is that of how many black
students are completing school and earning a college degree.

The economic gains that come from a college degree are transparently
obvious. Department of Education data shows that, as expected, black
students who earn a four-year college degree have incomes that are
substantially higher than blacks who have only some college experience
but have not earned a degree.

Most important, in view of the huge penalty race discrimination has
imposed on African Americans in the United States, is the fact that
blacks who complete a four-year college education have a median income
that is now near parity with similarly educated whites.

But the good news is severely tempered by the unacceptably low college
completion rate of black students. According to the most recent
statistics, the nationwide college graduation rate for black students
stands at an appallingly low rate of 43 percent.* This figure is 20
percentage points below the 63 percentage rate for white students. On
this front, the only positive news is that over the past three years the
black student graduation rate has improved by four percentage points...

Graduation Rates at Historically Black Colleges and Universities

We
come now to a most disappointing set of statistics. The graduation rate
of African-American students at the nation's historically black colleges
and universities (HBCUs) tends to be much lower than the graduation rate
for black students at the nation's highest-ranked institutions. Yet the
graduation rate at a significant number of HBCUs is well above the
nationwide average for black student graduations, which, as stated
earlier, currently stands at an extremely low rate of 43 percent.

By a large margin, the highest black student graduation rate at a
historically black college belongs to the academically selective,
all-women Spelman College in the city of Atlanta. In fact, the Spelman
black student graduation rate of 77 percent is higher than the black
student graduation rate at 12 of the nation's 56 high-ranking
predominantly white colleges and universities referred to earlier.
Spelman's unusual strength shows in the fact that it has a higher black
student graduation rate than do such prestigious and primarily white
colleges as Bates, Colby, Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Claremont McKenna,
Chapel Hill, and Carnegie Mellon.

Following Spelman in the rankings, the next-highest black student
graduation rate among the HBCUs was at Fisk University. At Fisk, 63
percent of the entering black students go on to graduate within six
years. Claflin University also has a black student graduation rate of 63
percent. Hampton University, Miles College, Howard University, Morehouse
College, and Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina sadly are
the only other HBCUs that graduate at least half of their black students
within six years.

Here is the worst news of all: At 20 HBCUs two thirds or more of all
entering black students do not go on to earn a diploma. The lowest
graduation rate was at the University of the District of Columbia, where
only 8 percent of entering freshmen go on to earn a bachelor's degree.
At Texas Southern University in Houston, 15 percent of entering students
complete college.

The low graduation rates at black colleges are due to a number of
reasons. Many of the students enrolled at these institutions are from
low-income families, often ones in which there are few books in the home
and where neither parent nor grandparent went to college. In addition,
the black colleges on the whole have very small and totally inadequate
endowments. They often lack the resources necessary to generate funds
for student financial aid. Often they are unable to furnish sufficient
aid packages for upperclassmen to permit them to stay in school. This
circumstance appears to be a major factor in accounting for the low
black student graduation rate at these schools. But probably the most
important explanation for the high dropout rate at the black colleges is
the fact that large numbers of African-American HBCU students do not
come to college with strong academic preparation and study habits. The
graduation results at the HBCUs are worsened by the fact that flagship
universities in the southern states often tend to shuttle the
lowest-performing black applicants into the state-controlled black
colleges in their states.

The discussion comments ranged greatly; however, most believe that
ranking is determined by admission practices. Schools with a liberal
admission practice tend to rank lower. On the other hand, schools
ranking high practice a more restrictive admission program. To read the
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http://www.jbhe.com/preview/winter07preview.html.