Going to College Isn't Paying off for Students of Color

[romanic]

Although college grads across the board make more money than their less-educated peers, the report found that whites and Asians with four-year degrees not only tend to outearn their black and Latino counterparts, but they also better withstood the impact of the Great Recession. “Based on two decades of detailed wealth data, we conclude that education does not, however, protect the wealth of all racial and ethnic groups equally,” the report’s authors wrote.

According to the study, white and Asian American families with four-year college degrees were more likely to have accumulated much more wealth over the longer term than their less-well-educated counterparts. Ditto for African American and Latino families, although their earnings and wealth were typically lower than that of whites and Asian Americans.

“This is certainly partially a story about intergenerational inequality,” S. Michael Gaddis, an associate professor of sociology and demography at Penn State University, wrote in an email to TakePart.

One factor: “Research shows that minority and low [socioeconomic status] students don’t attend the best possible colleges they could (based on grades, etc.) and that lack of the best degrees translates into a substantial workforce that is underutilized,” wrote Gaddis, who authored a study released in March that found minority students who attend elite schools such as Harvard don’t fare better in the job market compared with less-well-educated whites.

http://news.yahoo.com/going-college-isn-t-paying-off-students-color-220554467.html

The cards are truly staked against us. *sighs*

And also, AVOID the comments section since it's typical Yahoo drivel. -_-

[hill2016]

1. always thought

that Asians were people of color.

in particular, asians are discriminated in the admissions process so much so they many try to hide their race by not ticking the box

[Travis_0004]

5. If I was asian there is no way I would fill in that box.

[politicaljunkie41910]

26. Asians, tend to score the highest on the college entrance exams at most of the top universities.

[snagglepuss]

2. Are they all taking the same courses? This is not to say there isn't systemic

racism at play, I'd simply like to know whether the choice of major has a role to play.

[yeoman6987]

28. Majors are a big part is it

You major in sociology or psychology and don't continue to PHD, you may be working in a less fulfilling job especially with pay. Study engineering or medicine you may make out better. It is the choice of majors that define a lot of future earning. That is why I think guidance counselor need to do a better job counseling their clients (yep clients as they feel like they are just young kids) and guide them into making strong realistic choices.

[bemildred]

3. Education is not really about money.

That was the basic mistake, making it about "paying off".

[1939]

4. No, but if you are measuring post graduation financial results

You have to look at the majors and degrees.

For Asian-Americans, what percentage are majoring in Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Nuclear Physics, etc. as opposed to Philosophy, English Literature, Sociology, Marketing, Ethnic Studies, etc?

What are the percentages for African-Americans, Latinos, women, etc?

My grandson is majoring in Electrical Engineering at Michigan State. Most of the Africans in his classes are foreign students from Nigeria. His technical courses are predominately white and Asian males.

[bemildred]

9. That's what I'm saying, if you are looking at "post-graduation financial results" then

you are already being taken for a ride as far as education; what you think you are paying for then is access to good stable jobs, but you don't even get that.

[1939]

10. My degree (1961) was in Civil Engineering

I never felt like it was a purely "trade school" degree. I felt that I got a good education and never had trouble finding a job even though it was not in Civil Engineering per se. I have held jobs in reliability and maintainability engineering, test and diagnostic equipment engineering, and operations research/systems analysis. The basic math and scientific background applied in most of those jobs. Fifteen semester hours of English, nine semester hours of Economics, and six semester hours of History made me pretty well rounded and educated as well.

[bemildred]

11. Yes.

That's how it should be. All this "specialization" in the name of "efficiency" is an expensive road to nowhere. Even if you are one of the economic winners in such a system you are always vulnerable to technological obsolescence, I have long since lost track of the hot subjects that nobody heard of anymore. Generalists and pragmatists rule.

[1939]

14. I went through four years of engineering

with a slide rule which I still have (bring it out periodically to amaze young kids) and the massive and expensive Friden mechanical calculators (which could do about as much as a $5 pocket calculator does now).

I successfully adjusted to electronic calculators and later computers (what i would have given for a computer, word processor, and printer when I was in college). You just have to adapt as technology advances (and hire good people to work for you that are adept).

[bemildred]

15. I still have two slide rules and know how to use them.

And I believe also the first instruction handouts we got for those monster calculators. Which almost immediately after that became extinct.

But I also learned how to make computers obey, worked in a sawmill ten years, and other things.

So yeah. Things change, you need those general skills and knowledge to keep up. All that specialized info is soon to be forgotten and replaced with new and different specialized stuff. And then you are stuck.

The main reason I got out of the computer business in my fifties was I got tired of learning arbitrary crap that I knew would be replaced soon with more and different arbitrary crap.

Your profession, Civil Engineering, gets a bad rap, we need a boatload of civil engineers these days.

[1939]

19. CE Department taught us the slide rule

They had a 30 inch X 96 inch slide rule that hung from a frame made by iron pipes. The professor could use that at the front of the room to demonstrate the various operations. Every Saturday night from 7pm to 9pm for six weeks for freshman CE (no-credit of course). It was all a part of the $450 per academic year non-resident tuition (state students paid $50 a year).

[mythology]

30. The evidence disagrees with you

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

Higher educational achievement is highly related to higher incomes and lower unemployment.

[bemildred]

31. Correlation is not causation.

Education correlates with lots of the ingredients of the good life, that doesn't make it the cause of your success, and it doesn't mean that's what education is FOR, and that doesn't mean you won't become technologically obsolete in ten years whatever the guidance counselor might tell you.

[bemildred]

33. I will add that being well educated is one of the ingredients of the good life,

not merely an unfortunate and expensive pre-condition or causative factor, and the lack of a good BROAD general education, anytime you want or need it, means you have been sold a mess of pottage instead, and that our leaders have decided that you don't need to know all that stuff because you are just an employee.

[NutmegYankee]

12. STEM positions have good job prospects because they are naturally self limiting of candidates.

Many people either don't have the science/math skills required, or don't have the interest in the topic. I'm a Mechanical Engineer. I also got the full university education, including course in English, history, and fine arts.

[JustAnotherGen]

6. Through high school

Many black kids have gotten the shaft.

I'm looking at the "what major?" comments above mine.

It's by design.

If from day one in our segregated Public School system - if it didn't give you the basics - not only is electrical engineering out of reach - but so is basic English 101.

And I'll stop there because I had some du'ers get their noses out of joint when I stated I had a man working for me with a two year degree and strictly IT experience making about 20K more a year than me (it was a marketing role where I had 12 years successive experience and an advanced degree but the double whammy of being a black woman) - and I shared my salary. It doesn't matter if it's $140K or $40K. It doesn't matter who had the prep school and private university education. It doesn't matter if you asked for $20K more than they offered - and got it. It doesn't matter if your male employee comes in at 9:30, leaves at 4, goes to the gym every day for and hour and a half, is insubordinate, and not worth the money he is paid -


The inequality is real. I'd say the black woman who made 140K in 2007 and got a slap in the face by HR and now has 12 other women ready for that lawsuit (many minorities) can say -

The article is bang on.

[bettyellen]

18. Yep, we find these disparities all the time- and 15-20 years ago employers would admit it

And flat out tell you it was because men needed the money more. I can easily recall five or six times in my life where employers admitted the salary offered for women would be less than for a man.
Yet people try and gaslight you as if it never happened. Bullshit.
And yep about schools, fuck yes! The system is designed to leave behind people of color. Always has been. It has to be fixed at the lower grades first.

[madville]

7. I think about this every time

I see these strip mall, degree mill-type "colleges" around the city, typically not in the best areas. I wonder about how many young people there are falling into the trap and falling into huge debt in order to earn degrees from these shady looking places.

[6chars]

8. the source article's source article is interesting

https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/in-the-balance/issue12-2015/why-didnt-higher-education-protect-hispanic-and-black-wealth

To summarize, Black and Hispanic familes have lower incomes than White and Asian families regardless of education level. College translates to substantial but proportionally lower income gains for Black and Hispanic families than for White and Asian families. Higher income translates to higher net worth for Black and Hispanic families but not as much as for White and Asian families. In all these cases, Black families fared worse than Hispanic families. Black and Hispanic families suffered much greater hits to their net worth as a result of the recent recession, and a lot of this had to do with real estate.

[Lee-Lee]

13. Without it showing data by degree type it's hard to form a conclusion

Is the racial mix in every degree program the same?

We all know some degrees are far more likely to generate high or stable incomes than others.

Are some ethnic groups underrepresented in these degrees? If so, why? A lack of interest? A system that steers them away?

[6chars]

16. don't think that's it

https://www.census.gov/prod/2012pubs/acs-18.pdf

page 7 here has breakdown of degree areas by race. No appreciable difference, other than Asians being somewhat higher in Science/Eng .

[1939]

21. Bullshit study

They include psychology, sociology, anthropology, and economics as "science and engineering".

There is also a big difference between business majors who major in accounting and those who major in marketing.

[6chars]

22. It's the US Census

Anyway, at this level of aggregation, essentially no difference. Higher percentage of White students graduate in humanities than Black. Suggests the causes lie elsewhere.

[Lee-Lee]

23. That table is pretty well worthless

Lumping engineering and computer science into the same category as social sciences, anthropology, political science and psychology?

Fail.

[6chars]

24. Have you got something better

than the US Census' data? Your gut feel perhaps?

[Lee-Lee]

25. No- which is why I presented my post as a question

And I was wondering about those things.

Since that census data is presented in such a way as to be worthless for answering my question, I still have the same questions...

[6chars]

29. Hear me out

I agree the census data is not as specific as would be ideal. But even as coarse as it is, the lack of any pattern suggests that choice of major is not a big factor (i.e., there are effects after graduation at the points of hiring, in the workplace, in real estate markets, etc.). It could be a small factor, if within each of these classifications, there are differences in which specific majors people of different backgrounds choose. This study indicates that Black students are more likely to get degrees in community oriented majors and helping professions, which tend to be lower paying than other professional degrees, so there might be something to that. https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/whatsitworth-complete.pdf

[Bradical79]

17. I think it's a big problem that meeds a multifaceted solution

Just brainstorming a list from the top down:
We need free (or very low cost quality post secondary education)
A change in school funding to make sure even the poorest neighborhoods have all the tools they need for quality education through highschool (school districts shouldn't need to beg for local property tax hikes, imo)
An overhaul in law enforcement so black families are no longer broken up at such a high rate and so they have more representative voting power
A strong social safety net so poor parents don't have to abandon their children to feed them (working 3 jobs) and so a medical condition doesn't leave families financially ruined.

[Gormy Cuss]

20. No, what the study says is that it doesn't pay off as well for some as it does for others.

College-educated African-Americans and Latinos were still better off than non college-educated people of the same race/ethnicity. However neither of these two groups had the wealth accumulation gains of college-educated whites and Asian-Americans.

[Senator Tankerbell]

27. It's not what you know

It's who you know. I think one factor is that blacks and hispanics don't have as many connections as far as family and friends who may be in a position to help them find a decent job.

I haven't seen studies done on this specifically but I am curious whether black people who attend HBCUs or join black fraternities might have better outcomes because they have a network of connections they can tap into. Just a theory.

There are obviously other factors including just straight up discrimination based on race.

[bemildred]

32. You betcha. And that is what those expensive schools are really about. nt