October 18, 2007

Asian-American Students Face More Obstacles Than Stereotypes Suggest

The proportion of Asian-American college students has almost doubled each decade since the 1970s — to 8.8 percent of the total enrollment in 2005 — but those students do not enjoy the universal success that stereotypes suggest, according to a new report by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Three in 10 Asian-American students come from families with annual household incomes of less than $40,000, and one in five needs special tutoring or remedial work in English, says the report, “Beyond Myths: The Growth and Diversity of Asian-American College Freshmen, 1971-2005,” which can be ordered online.

Drawing on data from the research institute’s well-known freshman survey — with responses from more than 360,000 Asian and Asian-American first-time, full-time students at four-year institutions from 1971 to 2005 — it bills itself as the “largest compilation and analysis of data on Asian-American college students ever undertaken.”

Asian-American students tend not to take full advantage of financial-aid opportunities, instead relying on parents, relatives, and employment to pay for college, one of the report’s authors said in a written statement. The study found a significant increase in students who planned to work full time during college to cover costs.

The report also says that Asian-American students are more than twice as likely as their peers to apply to six or more colleges. But fewer Asian-Americans — 51.8 percent in 2005, compared with 69.8 percent nationally — were attending their first-choice institution. —Sara Lipka

Comments

1. After reading the brief of the report, I would like to know what ethnic groups they are referring to when they mention Asian-Americans / Asians. In the past, Pacific Islanders have been included in the reference to Asians/Asian-Americans. If the data was disaggregated, I think that the numbers would change slightly.

   — Eddie L. Paje, M.A.    Oct 18, 01:11 PM    #

2. I believe every time they talk about Asian-Americans, they mean pacific rim or east asia. It does not include South Asia. I believe results are skewed. They really need to disaggregate the data.

   — D.K. Malhotra    Oct 18, 03:43 PM    #

3. Asian-American is too broad a categoery to make sense of the report. More than half of the world’s population is Asian. More specific categories are necessary to mean anything useful.

   — Steve    Oct 18, 04:03 PM    #

4. as one of the co-authors, let me clarify the demographics of the report. pacific islanders are not included, and this is noted int eh full report. additionally, south asians are indeed included, since south asians make up a significant proportion of college going asian americans.

   — oiyan    Oct 18, 05:37 PM    #

5. additionally, we are focusing on Asian AMERICAN students, not ASIAN students. 5% of the U.S. population is Asian AMERICAN. folks need to be careful in assuming we’re talking about half the world.

   — oiyan    Oct 18, 05:43 PM    #

6. The issues for recent immigrants, regardless of cultural origin, may be similar. Is a Japanese-American yonsei’s situation and cultural background that much different from a European-American counterpart? But recent immigrants, no matter their country of origin, may face similar problems and share similar concerns.

   — Claire    Oct 18, 06:48 PM    #

7. With respect to recent immigrants facing similar problems noted above, this has not been the case for most of those who came from Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, etc.). Because of their “refugee” situation, they have faced unique hardships in the U.S. that other Asian immigrants do not. One such difference is the significantly lower educational attainment levels of Southeast Asians in the U.S. compared to Japanese or Korean Americans for example. We draw from Census data in the report to illustrate some of these differences.

   — M.J. Chang    Oct 18, 07:17 PM    #

8. I would still argue that further breakdown of the categories of Asian Americans are necessary to make the data meaningful. There are major cultural, linguistc, and socio-economic differences among Indians, Chinese, Koeans, Japanese, etc. To lump them all in one cateogory does not allow for any meaningful comparisons among ethnic groups. Asians are by no means members of a single ethnic group.

   — Steve    Oct 18, 08:23 PM    #

9. steve – we absolutely agree. we wished we could break down the ethnic groups, but the data collection mechanisms do not allow for meaningful ethnic disaggregation. btw, governor schwarzenegger just vetoed AB 295, which would have required CA data collection processes to further disaggregate Asian American and Pacific Islander populations, for meaningful comparisons.

   — oiyan    Oct 18, 11:29 PM    #

10. The article may be using the term “Asian-American,” but consider that 20% of these Americans need remedial help in English. Their backgrounds are obviously not Americanized. Which brings us back to “what is their background? Where do they come from?” Depending on those variables, the actual data could skew any number of directions.

    — Carlo    Oct 19, 10:44 AM    #

11. the categorization of Asian American is confusing, we have to _not reproduce the system that impose race bodily mark as has been happening, since does not really work in some cases, we have to see class in addition to clarify categorization in detail-in this matter-, as for example (another comment also pointed out) for children who rely on parents, i dont think that happened in many students from refugee status!!!!. let take example: Hmong children who were born here, Cambodian, or even Javanese (their parent are low income worker here) wow so many …that have different case, this approach can de value certain effort of hope in better education and chance of cholarship. Althugh those students were born here, the parent does not really have money to support, but again has to be clear which one, which class background.

    — roswita    Oct 19, 11:19 AM    #

12. Eventhough we did not have more specific ethnic breakdown information for this 35 year trends analysis of entering freshmen, we were able to disaggregate that student data by SES, gender, citizenship status, and native language. This helped to show how that population of students have changed over time, which is related to shifts in college access, financial need, academic interests, degree aspirations, etc. In the end, we aimed to reverse the most problematic trend of all—namely, the current trend of mischaracterizing and under-serving this growing student population in higher education.

    — M.J. Chang    Oct 19, 11:34 AM    #

13. disaggregating the data for sub-ethnic groups would show that those from refugee populations, e.g., Laotians, Hmong, have many more hardships, generally speaking, than other Asian subgroups that arrived in America without having had relatives displaced by war.

    — Richard    Oct 19, 12:22 PM    #

14. The term “Asian American” is as diverse as any other terms used to refer an ethnic group. I have not seen anyone question or ask to disaggregate the data for white, hispanic or African Americans.

    As a parent of a high school senior, I was suprised to find that MIT adimission office’s “minority community” website (http://www.mitadmissions.org/topics/life/the_mit_minority_community/) has no mention of Asian Amerian students. Sometimes, I wonder if Asian American’s Self-reliance actually ends up hurting themselves.

    — Jean    Oct 24, 05:25 PM    #

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