Racial Gap

In 2021, 653 African Americans died from work-related injuries. This was up 20.7 percent from 2020. African Americans made up 12.6 percent of all work-related fatalities due to injury. This was the highest percentage recorded since statistics on workplace fatalities have been collected.

A new report from the U.S. Department of Education finds that 80 percent of the nation's K-12 teachers are White, while only 45 percent of the students in these schools are White.  African Americans are 6.1 percent of all teachers in public schools but 15 percent of all students.

In 2020, when the pandemic struck, 19.4 percent of the Black civilian workforce (those who were employed or seeking work) experienced unemployment at some point during the year. More than 4.2 million Black workers were unemployed at some point during the year.

In 2021, nearly 54 percent of the White population over the age of 15 was married compared to 31.2 percent of the Black population. Only 27.5 percent of the White population had never been married compared to half of the Black population.

New data from the U.S. Department of Education shows that nearly 68 percent of all White students entering four-year colleges seeking a bachelor's degree in 2015 had graduated within six years. But only 45.7 percent of Black students had earned a bachelor's degree within six years. The racial gap was even larger at price, not-for-profit colleges and universities.

The results showed that only 19 percent of African American test takers met the college and career readiness benchmark for both reading and mathematics, the lowest level of any racial or ethnic group. Some 53 percent of Whites met the readiness benchmarks in both reading and mathematics. Some 54 percent of all Black test takers did not meet the minimum benchmark in either reading or mathematics. For Whites, the figure was 21 percent.

For the fifth year in a row, the average score for African American students dropped. The most striking statistic is that only 5 percent of all Black test takers were rated ready for college-level courses in all four areas of English, mathematics, science, and reading. Whites were nearly six times as likely as Blacks to be prepared for college-level work in all four areas.

In 2021, 18.1 percent of all Black families were living in poverty.  For non-Hispanic White families, only 5.7 percent were living below the poverty threshold. The Black-White family poverty rate gap where African American families are about three times as likely to be poor as White families, has remained virtually unchanged for more than a half century.

In academic radiology in 2019, Blacks were 3 percent of the assistant professors and 2 percent of the associate professors and full professors. The proportion of Black or African American department chairs was 5 percent in 2019. These percentages have not changed significantly since 2010.

The study found that students who were from an underrepresented racial or ethnic group, and also from a low-income family who lived in an underresourced neighborhood had a dropout rate that was nearly four times the rate of White students who were not from a low-income family and did not live in an underresourced neighborhood.

In years past, JBHE has published reports on the racial gap in participation in the Advanced Placement program of The College Board. Now, The College Board has decided to withhold data from the public on the racial breakdown of AP test scores.

A study led by Nicholas A. Bowman, Mary Louise Petersen Chair in Higher Education at the University of Iowa, finds that college graduation gaps between Black and White students tend to shrink when there are more students of color or faculty of color on campus.

The data revealed a much greater disparity between women of color and White women than had been determined in other studies. The authors found that maternal mortality rates for Black women in their early 20s are consistent with those of White women in their mid-30s or older.

Despite comprising 15 percent of the K-12 student population, Blacks make up just 6 percent of students taking advanced placement computer science courses. In 2020, only 8 percent of bachelor's degrees conferred in computer science were earned by Black graduates, a decrease since 2016.

If we exclude home equity, the median net worth of non-Hispanic White households in 2019 was $79,010. For Blacks, the median net worth - excluding home equity - was $3,630. Thus, Whites had nearly 22 times as much wealth as Blacks when we exclude the value of homes. Four year earlier, Whites held only a 12-to-1 advantage.

The latest report on the status of women and racial and ethnic minorities in leadership positions at the 130 educational institutions in the Football Bowl Subdivision of the NCCA has been released by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) at the University of Central Florida. These are generally the schools with the nation's largest athletic programs.

A new report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center finds that college enrollment rates for 2020 high schools graduates have fallen significantly, especially for students from schools with a large percentage of students from low-income or underrepresented groups.