ACE Report Underscores Lack of Diversity Among Graduates Earning Bachelor’s Degrees

GraduatesA new report released Thursday cites lack of diversity among those who earned a bachelor’s degree in the 2007-2008 school year — as well as disparities in pay once students enter the world of work — and says things will not change until barriers that face minority students are addressed.

“The pool of students leaving with a bachelor’s degree is less diverse than the pool entering or remaining in college,” says the report, titled With College Degree in Hand: Analysis of Racial Minority Graduates and Their Lives After College, by Mikyung Ryu of the Center for Policy Analysis at the American Council on Education.

The report delineates a range of disparities that impact minority college students as they matriculate through college, from taking longer periods of time to earn a degree to borrowing more frequently and larger amounts in order to finance their college education.

“Without eradicating barriers for those minorities, traditional students will continue to dominate the new college graduate pool while other students will remain on the sidelines
by not graduating or not seeking education beyond sub-baccalaureate credentials,” says the report, which indicates that most graduates were “unmarried, childless, White young adults in their early 20s who were financially dependent on their parents for their college education and who seamlessly moved along the path toward degree attainment — characteristics typically associated with traditional college graduates.”

“With postsecondary student demographics increasingly diverging from the traditional profile,” it continues, “the future of higher education essentially depends on its ability to resolve the chronic gap between the incoming and the graduating cohort of students.”

The report relies on data from a nationally representative sample of 1.5 million first-time baccalaureate degree earners in the 2007-2008 academic year. It delves into variations that exist along racial and ethnic lines on a variety of subjects that range from early labor market outcomes and post-baccalaureate education enrollment at the time of the survey, which was administered in spring of 2009.

Much of the report deals with matters of money. For instance, it found that many bachelor’s degree earners came from middle- or upper-class family backgrounds, and that 56 percent had a college-educated parent or came from families that earn more than $60,000 annually.