November 29, 2007

Minority Students Fuel Rise in Graduate Enrollments

Members of racial and ethnic minority groups made up 28 percent of the graduate-student enrollment in American colleges and universities in 2006, a 2-percent increase from the year before and the biggest jump in six years, says a report just issued by the Council of Graduate Schools. The statistics involve students who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

Native Americans’ enrollment rose the most, 9 percent, according to the report, “Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 1996-2006.” Enrollments of African-American, Asian, and Hispanic students were up by 3 percent each. No growth was reported in the number of nonminority graduate students.

Ten years ago, the proportion of minority students in graduate schools was 19 percent, said Debra W. Stewart, president of the council.

The increases in minority enrollment are “really the good news in this report,” she said. “I think we can really begin to take some heart that at least we’re continuing to see progress here.”

According to the most recent annual Survey of Earned Doctorates, members of minority groups also made up a record-high proportion of U.S. citizens who earned doctoral degrees from American universities in 2006.

The increase in minority students, along with growth in the number of women and international students, helped raise the overall enrollment in the nation’s graduate schools by 2 percent in 2006. First-time enrollments of non-U.S. citizens rose by 10 percent, while first-time enrollment of domestic students fell by 1 percent.

If the United States is going to remain a competitor in the global economy, Ms. Stewart said, “it’s important for us to continue to attract international students, but at the end of the day we have to do a better job of developing and cultivating the success of our domestic students across all fields.”

The report is based on a survey to which 680 institutions responded. They enroll 74 percent of all graduate students in the United States and award three-fourths of the master’s degrees and nearly 90 percent of doctorates. —Audrey Williams June

Comments

1. “No growth was reported in the number of nonminority graduate students.” Why is this? Is it because the non-mins are being shut out at the admissions desks by the diversity craze? White Americans please move to the back of the bus, there are some nice boys from Calcutta who would like to have your seat !

   — Paula    Nov 30, 11:25 AM    #

2. Paula, your comment is not only in poor taste but also pathetically ignorant. The article plainly states that total enrollment went up with minority enrollment. In other words, there is no tradeoff between minority and non-minority enrollment. I pray you are not an academician.

   — DLS    Nov 30, 12:46 PM    #

3. The summary is good news given that the outreach programs that support the increased presence of unrepresented groups in academia are continuously being gutted in the name of “fairness”. We still have a long way to go before there is fairness and equity in academia. The thought that there is a zero-sum formula for minority-nonminority enrollments in graduate education is rediculous. Legacy kids and special admits also exist at the graduate level, room and funding is always found for them. Very rarely will you find brown faces in that group. Just because this report shows a upward trend in minority enrollments at the graduate level, it is not an avalanche, and does not mean that there should be a corresponding “white flight” or “reverse discrimination” response. The real issue is that more funding should be allotted for education so that more people can go to school in the first place.

   — Marie Nubia-Feliciano, M.S.    Nov 30, 02:21 PM    #

4. Such great news! If college students or academicians need help in reading and understanding a simple article such as as this one, as Paula’s comments suggest, we ARE in real trouble. The real issue is expanding educational opportunity for all Americans, regardless of color or ethnicity or gender. This is what ultimately brings HOPE and ECONOMIC PARITY to underrepresented minorities in our communities. HOPE and ECONOMIC opportunity are essential to strengthening blighted, crime-ridden neighborhoods such as are often found in our inner cities and elsewhere in America.

   — Ira C.    Nov 30, 02:44 PM    #

5. Dear DLS, I assume your initials stand for “didn’t like school” since you obviously missed a lot of math classes. Let me fill you in. If enrollment of minorities as a percentage of total enrollment went up and the absolute number of nonminorities remained unchanged, then the total number of all enrolled graduate students had to increase unless there was a third group of students… which was not mentioned. This means that for every EXTRA desk that opened up in grad schools across America over the period in question, nonminorities got NONE. It sounds to me like you have more things to pray about than the welfare of my students, dumb a – - !

   — Paula    Nov 30, 04:08 PM    #

6. OK, Paula, so the point remains. Maybe non-minorities didn’t gain, but they didn’t lose. They would have to lose in order for their to be a tradeoff. You really don’t get this, do you?

   — Does Like School    Nov 30, 07:21 PM    #

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