History of Differences, Inequality in Higher Education

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History of Differences, Inequality in Higher Education

(to be used by facilitators)

Ashmun Institution (later Lincoln University) in Chester, PA was founded as the first all-black college. During the period immediately following the Civil War, numerous all black colleges were established.

Before 1945, nearly 90 percent of all black college students attended historically black colleges. Most Hispanics were enrolled in Catholic colleges.

The first black land-grant college was begun in 1872.

In 1878 the first off-reservation boarding school for Indians was established in Pennsylvania. The off-reservation boarding school’s purpose was to assimilate the Indians to white culture.

The land-grant college act requiring that funds for black education be distributed on a “just and equitable basis” served in 1890 to strengthen the “separate but equal” (or Jim Crow) doctrine.

In 1910, the University of Puerto Rico began to provide college-level education. Also in 1910, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs organized contracts with local school districts to integrate Indian children with whites and to establish the public school curriculum in Indian government schools.

The Julius Rosenwald fund, established in 1917 to provide money to construct black schools, built more than 5,000 school buildings in 883 counties in 15 states (predominantly in the south).

The first black was ordered admitted to the University of Maryland Law School by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1936
As a result of a 1938 Supreme Court decision admitting blacks to white law schools when equal educational schools for blacks were unavailable, states created separate graduate schools for blacks.
In 1941 the Julius Rosenwald Fund asked white universities to hire black faculty. The fund provided university presidents with a list of 200 blacks with Ph.D.s and 300 blacks with M.A.s. No measureable hiring of blacks came about.

The enactment of the GI Bill of Rights in 1944 enabled many poor students, including minorities, to attend college

In 1945, the Rosenwald Fun offered to pay the salaries of black faculty hired by white universities.
In 1948 two previously-segregated univsersities admitted blacks to graduate courses. In 1949, the Federal district court ordered the University of Kentucky to enroll blacks in its graduate school. From 1948 through 1952, federal courts ordered that blacks be admitted to graduate school and, when enrolled, that blacks be treated as other students, not segregated with the predominately white graduate school.

In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that separate but equal schools were inherently unequal and violated the 14^th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The 1954 school desegregation decision led to the desegregation of public facilities throughout the south.

School desegregation proceeded slowly. Many whites resisted violently in the

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streets while attorneys for school boards and university boards delayed desegregation in the courts.

Several Acts passed in 1964 and 1965 opened the doors for more minorities to enter college. These acts were the Economic Opportunity Act establishing the College Work-Study Program, Upward Bound, Talent Search, Special Services for Disadvantaged Students, and Educational Opportunity Centers. The Higher Education Act of 1965 provided federal money for needy students under the Equal Opportunity Grant and established the Guaranteed Student Loan program to pay the cost of supplying low-interest loans to eligible college students.
The rise of community colleges between 1965 and 1970 led to a significant increase in minority student enrollment. The first Tribal community college was established in 1971. By 1978, some 20 Tribal colleges were funded.

From 1970 through 1978, HEW and the federal courts ordered school desegration (sic) throughout the country on the elementary, secondary, and college levels. In 1978 the U.S. Supreme Court approved some affirmative action admissions programs for minority students while carving out protections for whites in certain limited instances.

In the 1980s, the courts focused their attention on tax exempt status and the receipt of federal funds by colleges practing race and sex discrimination. The U.S. Supreme Court authorized the I.R.S. denial of tax exempt status to schools that practice race discrimination, despite the Reagan Administration’s attempt to reverse that I.R.S. policy. In deciding the scope of the federal funds cut off when colleges were found to discriminate, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that only that part of the institution which discriminated would be subject to the cut-off. In 1988, Congress passed, over a presidential veto, the Civil Rights Restoration Act. The CRRA reinstated the broader federal funds cut off provision in use before 1984.

Today minority goup members are less likely to have a college education than whites. In 1986, 20.1 percent of whites over 25 had completed four or more years of college. The rate for blacks was 10.9 percent and for Hispanics only 8.4 percent.

In higher education, for example, the picture of stalled progress is dramatically clear. During the same period when the pool of minority high school graduates was becoming bigger and better than ever, minority college attendance rates initially fell, and have remained disproportionately low.

These figures illustrate the dimensions of the problems:

Between 1970 and 1975, the percentage of black high school graduates 24 years old or younger who were enrolled in or had completed one or more years of college rose from 39 percent to 48 percent; over the same period, the corresponding rate for whites remained steady at 53 percent. However, between 1975 and 1985, while the college participation rate for white youths climbed to 55 percent, the rate for blacks dropped to 44 percent. Recently released figures indicate that in 1986, the rate for blacks rose to 47 percent-still slightly below 1975.

The rate of college attendance for Hispanic youths remained stagnant between 1975 and 1985. Available evidence indicates a slight decline, from 51 percent to 47 percent.
For American Indians, high school graduation and college attendance rates remain the loewrst for any minority group. A report by the Cherokee Nation found that only 55 percent of American Indians graduate from high school, and of these only 17 percent go on to college.

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These figures become even more disturbing when we look beyond college enrollment to college graduation. Minority students continue to complete their undergraduate degrees at rates far lower than their white counterparts. Also, a much smaller percentage go on to graduate and professional schools.

For example, although blacks made up 9 percent of all undergraduate students in 1984-85, they received 8 percent of the associates’ degrees and 6 percent of the baccalaureate degrees conferred that year. Hispanics made up of 4 percent on enrollees, but received only 3 percent of the baccalaureate degrees. Hispanics did better at the community college level, receiving 4.5 percent of the associates’ degrees. By contrast, 8- percent of the undergraduate students in 1984-85 were white—but they received 85 percent of the baccalaureate degrees.

At the graduate level, the falloff for blacks is dramatic. Between 1976 and 1985, the number of blacks earning master’s degrees declined by 32 percent. Although Hispanics and American Indians registered slight increases, their share of master’s degrees remains disproportionately low—2.4 percent and 0.4 percent.

The number of blacks earning doctorates dropped by 5 percent in the same period; for black men it declined 27 percent. The number earned by Hispanics and American Indians increased significantly, from 393 to 677 for Hispanics and from 93 to 119 for American Indians, but at the doctoral level, too, their share is low—2.1 percent and 0.4 percent.

In certain critical fields of study, the minority presence is nearly non-existent. For example, in computer science, only one black received a doctorate out of 355 awarded in 1986. In mathematics, blacks received only six of the 730 doctorates awarded in that year.

The “new” majority

Today, women constitute 52 percent of all people enrolled in college in the U.S. and nearly 55 percent of the minority enrollment. In the last decade, women of nearly all racial/ethnic groups have enrolled in college in greater numbers than their male counterparts. In high education, women currently comprise over 59 percent of the black enrollment, 53 percent of the Hispanic enrollment and 55 percent of the American Indian enrollment. Asian/Pacific Island women constitute 46 percent of the enrollment of their ethnic group—a tremendous numerical gain the last 10 years. Today’s college students include, in addition to traditional-age women, a high proportion of “returning women,” those who are going back to school to finish an education interrupted for work, family, financial, or other reasons. Collectively, today’s women students are diverse in terms of age, social class, race, ethnicity, and religion. Their needs and learning styles often challenge the prevailing culture.

Black Women

Historically, black women have been of the most isolated, underused, and consequently demoralized segments of the academic community. This third-class academic citizenship had developed despite the fact that more black women enroll in college and receive degrees than black men, although enrollments for both black men and women have declined during the last decade. Black women currently represent 5.4 percent of the college enrollment compared to 3.6 percent for black men. They also maintain a higher proportional representation within their race than their white female counterparts. However, even with these higher participation rates, black women are seriously underrepresented in tenured faculty positions. They comprise only 0.6 percent of the full professorships, compared to 1.6 percent for black men, 9.9 percent for white women, and 83.2 percent for white men.

Asian American participation

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Asian Americans comprise about 2 percent of the national population but earn about 2.6 percent of all bachelor’s degrees, 2.7 percent of master’s degrees, and 3.4 percent of doctorial (sic) degrees every year. Roughly a quarter of all doctorates in life sciences are awarded to Asian American students as are one-fifth of doctoral degrees in physical sciences. Asian Americans earn 18 percent of doctoral degrees in engineering and 12 percent of doctoral degrees in the social sciences.

Not all Asian Americans are all0around high achievers, of course. About one-quarter of the Asian American population are hampered by limited communication skills and can therefore only consider college or careers in science and technology.

Nationally, about 9 of 10 of Asian Americans high school graduates attend some form of postsecondary education. Some 42 percent of them attend two -year colleges, 42 percent attend public four-year institutions, and 16 percent enroll in private four-year colleges and universities.

The recent success of Asian Americans in gaining access to higher education is a concern to whites and other minority groups and has led some institutions—particularly highly selective colleges where Asian Americans comprise 6 to 20 percent of the enrollment—to consider limiting their numbers. It has also led to social tension on campuses.

Unofficial limits may already exist. Because a high percentage of Asian Americans apply to private institutions, their acceptance rates at private colleges are actually significantly lower than the acceptance rates of other groups. A 1986 study by Breland, Wilder, and Roberton on institutional selectivity found that in 1985, among 98 selective institutions, Asian Americans were somewhat more likely to be accepted to the most selective public institutions and less likely to be accepted to the most selective private institutions. Across all types of institutions, Asian Americans were less likely than average to be accepted by both private and public institutions, by about 6 percent in the case of public and 14 percent in private institutions.

Often, when English-proficient Asian Americans are rejected, it is on nonacademic, personal grounds or on the basis of planned major fields rather than on inadequate grades, high school rank, or test scores. Asian immigrants, particularly those whose English proficiency is limited, will be more likely to be turned down on the basis of their inability to communicate and because too many want to enroll engineering or physical science programs. Competition for finite resources, laboratory space and equipment, and/or financial aid, have been cited by some faculty and admission officers as deterrents to Asian American acceptances.

References

“Timeline: The Long, Hard Road to Educational Equality” by Sheppard Ranbom and Janice LKynch. (Educational Record, Fall 1987-Winter 1988)

“Double Jeopardy: Women of Color in Higher Education” by Deborah Carter, Carol Pearson, and Donna Shaulik (Educational Record, Fall 1987-Winter 1988)

“Asian Americans Fight the Myth of the super Students” by Jayjia Hsia (Educational Record, Fall 1987-Winter 1988)

“One-Third of a Nation” (American Council on Education, Education Comm. Of the States)