Research & Studies

In our nation's capital, White people earn about 64 percent more than Black people. Compared to White residents, Black residents of Washington, D.C. have a 374 percent higher poverty rate, are 61 percent less likely to have a bachelor's degree, and are 263 percent more likely to be unemployed.

Nearly one-third of Americans born between 1988 and 1993 experience their parents' divorce in childhood. However, the impact of divorce is not spread evenly across racial groups, with 45 percent of Black children in this cohort experiencing divorce, compared to 30 percent of both White and Hispanic children and 17 percent of Asian children.

“[Black and Hispanic women] not only have been historically underrepresented in studies, but they face higher risks of developing breast cancer at younger ages and of experiencing more aggressive subtypes,” said Columbia University's Rebecca Khem, lead author of a new study revealing higher levels of physical activity in adolescence could lower girls' future breast cancer risk.

“Education was meant to be a gateway to opportunity, not a sorting mechanism that determines who is punished and who is protected,” said Mark Spencer of the U.S. Commission on the Social Status of Black Men and Boys. “Our findings show that too many Black boys are still denied fairness at the very start of their educational journey.”

“Regression is not destiny. But neither is progress automatic,” writes Joint Center chief of staff Monica Mitchell. “The path from signs of a Black recession to genuine economic security requires confronting the structural barriers this report documents.”

“Real-world gun violence disproportionately impacts communities of color, and our findings reveal that media coverage may compound these inequities through differential patterns of representation at scale,” the study authors write.

Although the average tenure of all college presidents in the United States is 5.9 years, the tenure of HBCU presidents averages just 4.22 years, with public HBCU presidents serving an average of only 4 years.

College applications submitted by Black or African American students via Common App are outpacing those submitted by their peers of other races. Compared to this point in the 2024-2025 application cycle, there has been an 11 percent increase in Black or African American applicants.

According to new research from WalletHub, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas have made the most progress in reducing disparities between their Black and White residents over the past five decades.

According to new survey from the Afterschool Alliance, parents of some 5.7 million Black children want to enroll them in afterschool activities, yet only 1.3 million Black children currently attend such programs.

Compared to their White and Hispanic peers, Black teens are more likely to use nearly every social media platform, particularly YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Over a third of Black teens say they are constantly on TikTok or YouTube on a daily basis.

In 2025, 24.3 percent of the 111 directors who made the 100 top-performing films were made by a director of an underrepresented racial background. Just 43 Black men and 11 Black women have directed a movie included in the 1,900 top-performing films since 2007.

A new report published in the Tennessee Lookout has examined just how much money the state of Tennessee owes Tennessee State University as a result of missed land-grant funding, disparities in per pupil funding between the HBCU and the University of Tennessee, and segregation scholarships that took money directly from the TSU budget.

While total student enrollment at the University of Missouri has declined by roughly 10 percent over the past decade, Black student enrollment has decreased by about 34 percent. Only 85 of more than 2,200 current faculty members are Black. Just 36 of these Black faculty members have tenure or tenure-track status.

First appearing in 1892, the boll weevil destroyed much of the country's cotton crops by 1922, affecting a significant portion of Black farmers. A new study has found this agricultural shock, which caused many Black fathers to migrate to other areas or change their occupation, may have led to long-term economic benefits for Black sons born after the boll weevil first appeared.

According to a new study from the United Negro College Fund, some 60 percent of high school students in the Northeast, Midwest, or Western United States are not at all or only slightly familiar with historically Black colleges and universities, suggesting an urgent need for teachers and school counselors to increase students' awareness of these institutions.

A new report from the Legal Defense Fund and Thurgood Marshall Institute analyzes several areas of college admissions processes where race, class, and gender biases can be baked into decision-making and outlines ways to make college admissions more fair for students of all backgrounds.

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Research has released a new report advocating for the sixth reauthorization of the the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006, which allocates funding for state career and technical programs. According to the report, these programs provide a key pathway for the economic mobility and educational attainment for Black students.

For the 2025-2026 academic year, Black students represented 11.3 percent of all applicants, but only 8.4 percent of all matriculants to medical schools in the United States. This is a significant decline from 2021-2022, when Black students' representation among medical school matriculants peaked at 11.7 percent.

In addition to Black adults' overall higher cancer mortality rate compared to White adults, a new report from the American Cancer Society found significant cancer mortality rate disparities within the Black American population based on education.