Despite the increased emphasis placed in recent years on the importance of obtaining a college degree, deep disparities between rich and poor, minority and White students still persist when it comes to who goes to college as well as who finishes, new college completion figures released Thursday show.
Specifically, for high school graduates from the Class of 2009, 45 percent of students from higher income high schools had obtained a college degree within six years of graduation, compared to 24 percent of students from lower income schools—a difference of 21 percentage points.
The figures the clearinghouse released Thursday reveal a stark reality that frustrates efforts to contravene the notion that “demography is destiny” when it comes to college degree attainment.
The language of the report could easily lead one to conclude that the best way to ensure a successful college experience is for a student to go to a suburban high school with a lot of White kids whose parents are well off and not enroll in an urban high school with a lot of minority kids whose parents are struggling to make ends meet.
For instance, after it delineates the disparities between the rates at which students from high-income versus low-income schools complete their degrees, the report notes that “the relationship of minority status of a school was equally strong.”
“Forty-eight percent of students with low minority high school students completed a college degree within six years, compared to only 28 percent from high minority schools,” the report states.
