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Enrollment Gap Developing, Education Group Says
More than twice as many students from minority groups are enrolled in colleges and universities now compared with twenty years ago. Nonetheless, a gap has opened in enrollment levels between minority and nonminority students during that time, according to a report issued in January by the American Council on Education (ACE). The council's Minorities in Higher Education 20th Annual Status Report says that between 1981 and 2001, minority enrollment in postsecondary institutions grew from 2 million to 4.3 million students. But at the same time, the college participation rates for whites, African Americans, and Hispanics have diverged. During 1978-80, the college participation rate for all three groups was about 30 percent; during 1998-2000, however, it was 46 percent for white high-school graduates, 40 percent for African Americans, and 34 percent for Hispanics.
The report reveals new evidence that minority women are enrolling in greater numbers than their male counterparts. For example, in 1980-81, 28 percent of African American women aged eighteen to twenty-four were enrolled in college, compared with 30 percent of men. Twenty years later, the number of women rose to 42 percent, while attendance for African American men climbed only to 37 percent. Among Hispanic students, the participation rate for men fell slightly over the same twenty-year period, from 31.5 to 31 percent, while the participation rate for women rose from 27 to 37 percent.
The percentage of degrees earned by minorities grew over the past two decades. Minorities received 11 percent of all bachelor's degrees and 11 percent of master's degrees in 1980-81; by 2000-01, they were receiving 22 percent of bachelor's degrees and 19 percent of master's degrees. Minorities were also responsible for all growth in professional and doctoral degrees over the past two decades. They earned three times as many professional degrees and just over twice as many doctorates in 2000-01 as they did twenty years earlier.
The number of minority faculty has increased nearly twofold since 1980-81, according to the report. Asian American, Hispanic, and American Indian faculty have doubled their numbers, and the number of African American faculty rose by nearly 50 percent. Minority representation has also more than doubled among full professors, although whites still hold more than 89 percent of the highest academic posts.
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