Graduation Rates for Black Students Aren’t Increasing at Same Pace as for Other Students

Report: “Rising Tide II: Do Black Students Benefit as Grad Rates Increase?”

Authors: Andrew Howard Nichols, Kimberlee Eberle-Sudré, and Meredith Welch

Organization: The Education Trust

Summary: Graduation rates at higher-education institutions are broadly on the rise, but overall data do not take into account completion rates among students of different races. Of the 232 four-year, public institutions that improved their overall graduation rates from 2003 to 2013, 70 percent also had increased graduation rates among black students. However, the increases among black students’ graduation rates were not as high as the rates among white students at more than half of those institutions.

The report found, among other things, that:

• In the past decade, completion rates for black students improved 4.4 percentage points, compared with 5.6 points for white students.
• Fifty-two of the institutions improved overall graduation rates while also achieving gains for black students by nine or more percentage points.
• Thirty-nine institutions saw a decline in graduation rates among black students.

Bottom Line: While some of the universities studied are improving graduation rates for black students, about a third of the institutions did not improve rates among black students at all from 2003 to 2013. The report states, however, that since some institutions have narrowed the graduation-rate gap between black and white students, “it’s reasonable to believe others could too if they worked at it.”