Algernon Austin presents an excellent, concise, and wonderfully read scholarly examination of the complicated landscape of race, class and popular perception. Besides the prison industrial complex, black strides in education, poverty rates, crime and other indices contradict claims that blacks are “moving backward.”--Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar, Director, Institute for African American Studies, University of Connecticut and author of Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity (The Johns Hopkins University Press), 2004 and Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap (University Press of Kansas), 2007.
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[Find out The Truth about Black Students.]
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[This past week the New York Times illustrated that when some people show their underwear it is high fashion. When other people do it, it is a criminal offense. The Times also reported that college costs are still rising which prompted a re-post of this piece from last year below.]
Ninety-two percent of black students believe that a college education is important for success today. Ninety-six percent of their parents feel the same. These were among the findings of a study commissioned by the Sallie Mae Fund. The study examined the views of high school students and their parents in five cities.
While many commentators have been fixated on the erroneous idea that black students do not value education, the truly important educational issues have received little attention. One issue that has been neglected is the impact of the skyrocketing cost of college on black students’ college graduation rate.
The good news is that in 2004, 22 percent more blacks received bachelor’s degrees than just four years earlier. The bad news is that the black college graduation rate is still 20 percentage points lower than the white rate.
The cost of college is not the only factor behind this difference in college graduation rates, but it is an important one. Many blacks know very little about financial aid. Some black students do not even attempt to go to college because they don’t know how they would pay for it.
The large increase in the cost of college and changes in financial aid practices have greatly increased the economic burden of higher education on low-income families. The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education found that it costs the poorest 20 percent of families 16 percent more of their family income to send a child to college today than in 1992. The middle 20 percent of families spend 5 percent more of their family income and the top 20 percent, 1 percent more. The Center also found that colleges now give more grant aid to middle- and upper-income students than low-income students.
Many low-income black students are placed in a difficult bind to pay for college. Reasonably, they are reluctant to acquire a great deal of debt. The average black college student graduates with over $20,000 worth. But they do not have any good alternatives. The maximum Pell Grant award for low-income students only covers about one-third of the costs of a four-year college today, but it covered nearly three-quarters in the 1970s. The vast majority of students who receive the grant do not even receive the maximum award.
In a desire to avoid debt, low-income black students may select a college that they can attend part-time and commute to. These decisions would allow them to save and earn money by staying at home and working part-time. While these are economically rational decisions, they all make it more likely that the student does not graduate from college.
It is often a difficult process for black students who are the first in their family to go to college and who are used to a predominantly black environment to become acculturated to a predominantly white college. Black students who are fully immersed in college life by attending full-time and by living on campus appear to better make the adjustments and attachments they need to help them stay in college. Students who try to save money by enrolling part-time and commuting may end up with perhaps less college debt but also no college diploma.
Low-income students of any race should not be forced to choose between large college debts and a college diploma. We need to find ways to reduce college costs and increase the amounts of grant aid going to low-income students. In 2004, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education gave 36 states an “F” grade for college affordability. This year there were 43 “Fs”. Hopefully, we will recognize the magnitude of this crisis and act soon. If we do, we will make big strides in increasing the numbers of blacks who graduate from college and ease the burden on all low-income college students.
References
“Higher and Higher Education: Trends in Access, Affordability, and Debt,” Demos Policy Brief #1, Winter 2007.
Patricia Somers, “The Persistence of African American College Students: How National Data Inform a Hopwood-Proof Retention Strategy,” in The Academic Achievement of Minority Students: Perspectives, Practices, and Prescriptions, ed. Sheila T. Gregory (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2000), 249-265.
Watson Scott Swail and Dennis Holmes, “Minority Student Persistence: A Model for Colleges and Universities,” in The Academic Achievement of Minority Students: Perspectives, Practices, and Prescriptions, ed. Sheila T. Gregory (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2000), 391-433.
“A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education,” U.S. Department of Education, 2006.
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--Algernon Austin, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2005-2007 by Thora Institute, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Reprint this article in your newspaper or magazine. Contact the Thora Institute to purchase reprint rights.
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