New data from the U.S. Census Bureau offers a snapshot of the high school graduation rate status and enrollments of the American population in school in October 2020. At that time, there were 28,983,000 African Americans who were high school graduates. They made up 89.8 percent of the Black population ages 18 and over. There were nearly 3 million African American adults over the age of 18 who were not high school graduates. There were more than 900,000 African Americans over the age of 65 who had not graduated from high school. They made up about one sixth of all African Americans over the age of 65.
For non-Hispanic White Americans in October 2020, there were 149,585,000 high school graduates. They made up 94.8 percent of the non-Hispanic White population ages 18 and over.
The data also shows that in October 2020, 26.5 percent of all African Americans over the age of 3 were enrolled in school. For non-Hispanic White Americans, only 19.8 percent of the population age 3 and over was enrolled in school.
For the population ages 30 to 49, a great percentage of the African American population was enrolled in school than was the case for non-Hispanic White Americans. But for those over the age of 50, the percentage of non-Hispanic Whites who were enrolled in school was higher than for African Americans over the age of 50.
