If K-12 is not a Level Playing Field, is Higher Education?

In last week’s newsletter, I looked at the K-12 side of the fiction—or myth—that African Americans now have the same access to quality education as Whites. In particular, I looked at the degree to which public school systems have resegregated over the past three decades and?that segregated schools have once again become the norm in America in 2024. I also looked at the profound and inequitable gap between funding for White-majority versus Black-majority schools, to the tune of $23 billion.

Although there are other dimensions of Blacks’ lack of access to quality K-12 education, I want to focus on the higher education side of the ledger this week.

There Have Been Substantial Improvements, BUT …

As I write in my book, It’s Never Been a Level Playing Field, we have seen substantial improvements in access and attainment for Black students since the 1960s in higher education, but the disparities we saw five decades ago between Whites and Blacks have not improved.

First, some good news: 92% of African Americans between 25 and 29 held a high school diploma in 2018, compared with only 54% in 1968. That’s an enormous change. The percentage increase for Whites during that time climbed from 75% to nearly 96%.

Although African Americans saw significant leaps in college graduation rates in the same period (from 9% to nearly 23%), the rates for Whites increased further, from?16% to 42%. Both increased, but the gap between Whites and Blacks rose from 1968 to 2013, from 7 percentage points to 19 percentage points.

Economically, Whites without high school diplomas fare significantly better in wages than Blacks without high school diplomas. The same is true between Whites and Blacks with college degrees.

The college enrollment rate for Blacks stands at 55% compared with 70% for Whites. For those who enroll in college, after six years, college degree attainment is far better for Whites (64%) than for Blacks (40%).

Those who attended high-poverty K-12 systems (predominantly Black) completed college at even lower rates, 25%. Meanwhile, 81% of those who attended low-poverty systems (predominantly White) are far more successful in college completion.[1]

In summary, compared with White students at the college level, Black students attend more poorly funded institutions, are more financially burdened on average, take longer to complete a degree, and?are more likely to pursue two-year degrees, which often lead to lower lifetime wages; are more likely to drop out (often for financial reasons); and are far less likely to be enrolled in selective colleges and universities than White students.

Attending Poorer Quality K-12 Schools Leads to Inadequate Preparation for College

According to the Journal for Blacks in Higher Education (JBHE), “[M]any black students who enroll in college are not adequately prepared for college-level curriculum. Poor preparation in K–12 education leaves many black students without a sufficient academic foundation to succeed in college. Poor grades then lead to frustration, which increases the likelihood that these students will drop out. . . . [However], JBHE research has shown that two-thirds of all blacks who drop out of college do so for financial reasons. Many black students decide they do not want to build up large debts.”[2]

Many Black college students leave college to support their families financially by getting a full-time job. Others find holding a job while attending college full-time too burdensome and drop out. And even then, African American students, on average, accumulate higher levels of student debt.

We know that even those who complete some college-level courses are more likely to move out of poverty. “Completing some college coursework or attaining an associate degree yields an average payoff of nearly $8,000 per year. Throughout a 40-year career, this adds up to nearly $332,000 in additional earnings. The pay-off is even more significant for workers who achieve a bachelor’s degree, yielding a premium of $1 million in lifetime earnings—enough to pay off an education and build a sound financial future.”[3]

Over the decades, Black student participation in public, four-year institutions has been compromised by a series of state and Supreme Court decisions. These decisions looked to eliminate the use of race in student enrollment to achieve racial equality in higher education. This phenomenon has been true at Historically White Institutions (HWIs, in which at least 50 percent of students are White), where many U.S. undergraduate students attend. This is true even more so at “flagship” institutions—typically the best-known and most selective public universities in each state (e.g., the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill).

In many states, Black student enrollment in flagship institutions remains stuck in the single digits. Even where it is higher, the percentage almost always sits lower than the percentage of the?African American population in the state. Georgia is a perfect example—Black students comprise 32 percent of Georgia’s student population. Yet, less than 8 percent of its undergraduate, graduate, and professional students attend the flagship, University of Georgia.

Resistance to Affirmative Action from the Very Beginning

Let’s be honest about the resistance to affirmative action. This has been happening since John F. Kennedy issued an executive order for affirmative action in 1962.

The resistance has not been because the progress Blacks have made in recent decades means it's no longer needed. On the contrary, ever since the federal government implemented affirmative action in the early 1960s, White segments of the population (ever-growing) have forged a steady undercurrent of resistance and resentment about the need for it in the first place.

In 2023 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that college admissions programs that account for race violate the 14th Amendment, it may be easy to forget that our nation first implemented affirmative action to attempt to remedy centuries of ruthless discrimination, enabling higher education institutions to begin to undo the harm of their racist and discriminatory policies and practices of the past. These remedies, in theory, would allow colleges and universities to become equalizers in our society after long serving as incessant discriminators.[4]

It’s also easy to forget that California ended affirmative action in admissions for its public universities in 1996—and eight other states quickly followed suit. Or that Michigan voters approved the banning of affirmative action in admissions in 2006. These state-level decisions have caused genuine harm to Black students in those states, as the enrollment rate, especially in state flagship universities has declined.

Thus, affirmative action opponents have long sought to neutralize any genuine educational progress for African Americans by proposing that affirmative action causes undue harm to Whites, ironically, the actual, long-time, recipients of affirmative action in higher education.

Affirmative Action (primarily) for Whites: Legacy Admissions

Simultaneous to these efforts, the nation’s top research universities and liberal arts colleges have persisted in a unique affirmative action program for Whites: legacy admissions.

Legacy admissions are when children of alumni receive admission preferences due to a parent’s graduation from that same institution. The Boston Globe’s Rebecca Ostriker accurately writes, “If you think of affirmative action as an effort to undo past injustices, legacy preferences do the opposite. They reinforce privilege and intensify inequality.”[5]

For decades after affirmative action was instituted, nearly all of the nation’s most selective institutions—from public research universities to premier private liberal arts colleges—have continued with these admissions practices. Legacy admissions have persisted in places like Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Notre Dame, as well as in flagship state institutions. For example, the State of Colorado did not ban legacy admissions for all of its state-funded colleges until 2021. Many other states have yet to follow suit.

The number of legacy admissions at many selective institutions is not inconsequential. For example, “[a]t Notre Dame, legacies outnumber Black students by a factor of 5 to 1. . . . Earlier this century, 12.5% of elite Johns Hopkins’s admits went to legacy applicants”[6] This is far higher than regular admissions rates at any of these institutions. In 2021, legacy admissions were between 10 and 15 percent of the incoming first-year classes at Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth.[7]

Unsurprisingly, most legacy admits are White, often from well-to-do White families. Legacy admissions in these places are almost always a much higher percentage than admission of Black students.

Thus, even as our nation purports to create a level playing field in education, notably higher education, this common practice harms Black students and other students of color and of lower incomes.[8]

Reversing these legacy practices can make a significant difference. Once Johns Hopkins University eliminated its practice in recent years, “the percentage of enrolled legacies declined from 12.5 percent to 3.5 percent, while Pell Grant enrollment climbed from 9 to 19 percent.”[9]

The deck continues to be stacked against Black students (and other students of color) in these elite institutions. It matters for many reasons.

The Plight of Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs)

Elite institutions can invest far more resources in every student than less-resourced institutions, many of which are what are termed Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs). How much more? We’re talking about tens of thousands of dollars per student.[10]

PBI enrollments have increased over the last several decades. To qualify, a PBI institution’s enrollment must be at least 40 percent African American and at least 50 percent of students who receive Title IV needs-based assistance, meaning those students come from families with low incomes.

However, studies have found that instruction at PBIs is “disproportionately conducted by less-credentialed, non-tenure-track faculty, and these institutions tend to have lower graduation rates than at more selective institutions.”[11] Because they serve a high proportion of underprepared students without the resources their sister flagship institutions have, too many PBIs see relatively poor educational outcomes for their African American students.

What about HBCUs?

HBCU. Most African Americans know what the acronym represents, but many Whites do not (I didn’t know until I was in my mid-30s). It stands for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

HBCUs produce nearly 20 percent of all Black graduates and continue to serve as the source of a high percentage of Black judges, scientists, dentists, physicians, and even members of Congress. Yet despite this impressive production, these institutions have also suffered from disinvestment comparable to PBIs. The United Negro College Fund reports that the federal funding of HBCUs is not only far lower than predominantly White institutions, but the funding gap has grown fourfold just during the twenty-first century.

Thus, despite HBCUs’ track record and proven ability to improve economic prospects for their graduates in a way few other institutions have, neither the federal nor state governments have stepped up with equitable funding to help improve the prospects of even more Black students.

In 2023, a Forbes magazine analysis showed how states had grossly underfunded sixteen of the nation’s nineteen HBCUs founded as land-grant institutions. By how much? ?By more than $13 billion over more than three decades (1987–2020). Federal law has required states to distribute funds equally to the originally White land-grant university and its Black HBCU counterpart. How alarming was the disparity? Southern University in Louisiana was shortchanged by more than $1 billion and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore by $321 million over thirty-three years—to provide two egregious examples.[12]

Funding formulas for HBCUs have begun to change under the Biden administration, including a $1.3 billion round of federal investments to HBCUs in September 2024 to boost their research competitiveness. But it will remain to be seen whether that these recent changes and reinvestments are sustainable across presidential administrations.456

Almost certainly not if Donald Trump gets elected again.

Thus, the hard facts remain. Too many Black students face more significant hurdles in matriculating to higher education, attend institutions of lower quality with fewer academic resources, and face far more significant financial hurdles to continue their postsecondary education compared to White students.

The Good News: Institutions with High Graduation Rates

As you can see, African Americans have made important progress, but obstacles remain to prevent more from attaining success in higher education.

First, between 2000 and 2016, Black postbaccalaureate enrollment doubled (a 100 percent increase, from 181 to 363 thousand), with Black women showing significantly higher enrollment than Black men.[13]

Also, in pockets, there are institutions with significant numbers of Black students performing much higher than average. The Journal for Blacks in Higher Education found dozens of higher education institutions where Black students graduate at the same or higher rates as White students. Institutions where Black students are a significant percentage of students enrolled and where the graduation rates are 5–10 percent higher than White students include Kennesaw State University (GA), Stony Brook University (NY), the State University of New York at Old Westbury, Georgia State University, Winthrop University (SC), and Agnes Scott College (GA), among many others. Black students make up at least 20 percent of the total enrollments at these schools.[14]

JBHE also found more than one hundred institutions that had eliminated the racial gap. Many of these institutions graduate at least 75 percent of their Black students, which is 30 percent above the national average. These schools include Lewis & Clark College (OR), St. Lawrence University (NY), Transylvania University (KY), Centre College (KY), St. Michael’s College (VT), Wofford College (SC), Babson College (MA), Elms College (MA), and Gettysburg College (PA).[15] The successes of these institutions should be studied carefully.

Yet, we must realize that there is no easy or systematic way to replicate these relatively isolated and discrete successes.

The bottom line: until our higher education system invests more equitably in Black students, the significant gaps in Black enrollment and graduation rates compared to White students will unfortunately persist.

There are other significant hurdles Black students face—high proportions of African American students attending less-than-credible for-profit colleges and the burden of accumulating student loans—but I’ll save addressing those for another newsletter.

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To access all the previous newsletters, go here - https://levelthefield.substack.com/archive .

Given my day job is a full-time community engagement consultant, in the last few weeks, I realized I only had the bandwidth to write one post a week. I hope all of you are okay with that …         

[1] De Brey, et al., "Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Groups 2018," National Center for Education Statistics, February 2019, p. v1, https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019038.pdf . And Anthony P. Carnevale and Jeff Strohl, "Separate & Unequal: How Higher Education Reinforces the Intergenerational Reproduction of White Racial Privilege," Georgetown University Public Policy Institute, July 2013, pp. 11, 32, HTTP://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/SeparateUnequal.FR_.pdf . And Jon Marcus, "Facts about race and college admission, " The Hechinger Report, July 2018, https://hechingerreport.org/faces-about-race-and-college-admission/ . And "Indicator 23: Postsecondary Graduation Rates (Last Updated: February 2019), " Status and Trends in the Education of Racial and Ethnic Groups, National Center for Education Statistics, https://nces.ed.gov/programs/raceindicators/indicator_red.asp# . And "National College Progression Rates: High School Benchmarks," National Student Research Center, October 27, 2022, p. 8.

[2] “College Graduation Rates: Where Black Students Do the Best and Where They Fare Poorly Compared to Their White Peers,” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 2010, https://www.jbhe.com/features/65_gradrates.html .

[3] “Priced Out: Making College More Affordable for Low-Income Marylanders,” Job Opportunities Task Force Special Issue Brief, September 2014, p. 2.

[4] Carol M. Swain, “Affirmative Action: Legislative History, Judicial Interpretations, Public Consensus,” In America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences: Volume I, pp. 327–328.

[5] Rebecca Ostriker, “Boycott targets college admissions given alumni children at Harvard and other elite schools,” Boston Globe, September 25, 2021, https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/09/25/metro/boycott-targets-college-admissions-boost-given-children-alumni-harvard-other-elite-schools/.

[6] Felix Salmon, “The legacy-admissions racket, explained,” Axios, October 25, 2021, https://www.axios.com/2021/10/25/legacy-admissions-college-admissions

[7] James S. Murphy, “College Admissions are Still Unfair,” The Atlantic, October 23, 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/amhersts-legacy-announcement-wont-end-inequity/620476/.

[8] James S. Murphy, “College Admissions are Still Unfair,” The Atlantic, October 23, 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/amhersts-legacy-announcement-wont-end-inequity/620476/.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Richard D. Kahlenberg, Affirmative Action for the Rich: Preferences in College Admissions, The Century Foundation, September 2010, p. 3.

[11] Allen et al., “From Bakke to Fisher: African American Students in U.S. Higher Education over Forty Years,” Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, Vol. 4, No. 6, October 2018, p. 64.

[12] . Katherine Knott, “16 states underfunded land-grant HBCUs by over $12B, Biden admin says,” Higher Ed Dive, September 20, 2023, https://www.highereddive.com/news/16-states-underfunded-land-grant-hbcus-by-over-12b-biden-admin-says/694020/#.

[13] “The Condition of Education 2018,” NCES, 2019, pp. 166–171.

[14] “College Graduation Rates: Where Black Students Do the Best and Where They Fare Poorly Compared to Their White Peers,” The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 2010, https://www.jbhe.com/features/65_gradrates.html.

[15] Ibid.