Although the number of Black students attending public colleges has increased over the decades, national data indicate that “Black students are still severely underserved in public higher education despite having relatively identical college-going aspirations as their peers from different racial and ethnic groups,” wrote the study’s co-authors at Ed Trust, Dr. Andrew Howard Nichols, senior director for higher education research and data analytics, and J. Oliver Schak, senior policy and research associate for higher education.
Outlined in detail in the report – “Broken Mirrors: Black Student Representation at Public State Colleges and Universities” – are four key findings based on data from 41 states:
· Black students are underrepresented at all but four of the four-year public schools examined, while Black enrollment at community and technical colleges doesn’t reflect the state’s racial composition of Black residents in about half of the states examined.
· Black graduates are underrepresented among associate’s-degree earners in 33 of the 41 states; only three states have equity between Black bachelor’s-degree earners and their state’s demographics; and eight states would have to more than double their numbers of Black bachelor’s-degree earners to match their state’s respective demographics: Wisconsin, South Carolina, Ohio, Nebraska, Michigan, Kansas, Hawaii and California.
· Black graduates are more likely than their White counterparts to be awarded certificates and associate’s degrees but less likely to earn a bachelor’s degree, with about half of the 41 states reporting double-digit gaps between the shares of Black and White graduates receiving bachelor’s degrees.
