Research & Studies

JBHE has compiled Black student graduation rates at the nation's 30 highest-ranked universities. At 29 of the 30 universities, the Black student graduation rate is 85 percent or higher. Nineteen have Black student graduation rates of 90 percent or higher.

The Payne Research Center at the Thurgood Marshall College Fund has conducted a survey with HBCU students to gauge their financial challenges and aspirations in an effort to develop initiatives aimed at improving their financial well-being and ability to build generational wealth.

Breast cancer deaths among Black women aged 20-49 dropped from 16.54 deaths per 100,000 women in 2010 to just 3.41 deaths per 100,000 women in 2020. However, Black women's breast cancer mortality remains notably higher than that of White women, whose morality rate in 2020 was only 1.16 deaths per 100,000 women.

JBHE has compiled a list of the graduation rates at the nation's 25 largest HBCUs by total enrollments to see how students at these schools succeed in earning a degree. Only four of the 25 HBCUs graduated at least half of their entering students within six years. The low graduation rates at many of these HBCUs is undoubtedly impacted by a long history of underfunding at these institutions.

After the onset of the Black Lives Matter movement in the summer of 2020, there was a rapid drop in White Americans' racial biases towards Black Americans. However, this drop was short-lived. By the end of 2020, implicit and explicit biases held by White Americans increased to nearly pre-BLM levels.

Dr. Robert Taylor, professor of social work at the University of Michigan, has recently published a study regarding the patterns of friendships and support networks for African Americans. Unmarried Black adults are more likely to have stronger friend networks than those who are married.

People who hold strong racial biases against Black men and women's intelligence are more likely to dismiss a genius Black TV or movie character as unrealistic, even when the character is based on a real-life individual.

"There are many barriers that limit the likelihood that lower-income students will be academically qualified to enroll in these highly selective colleges," writes the author. "But those who can succeed in that environment deserve the opportunity to ascend the economic ladder."

Scholars from the University of Pennsylvania have found patient outcomes directly related to nursing care are worse at Black-serving hospitals, including those with strong nursing resources.

Co-authors Loneke Blackman Carr and Jameta N. Barlow have uncovered a significant disparity in Black women's participation in weight loss research over the past decade. They write, "Interventions designed with Black women for Black women will be important to generate holistic solutions for weight loss."

This year, the qualifications for achieving the R1 Carnegie Classification were simplified. Now, institutions must simply award a minimum of 70 doctorates and spend at least $50 million on research per year. These updated metrics have the potential to increase the number of HBCUs with R1 status.

For every 100,000 children, 11.7 Black children and 2.1 White children died by firearm in 2023. Among youth homicides, 8.9 Black children and one White child died by firearm per every 100,000 children in 2023.

"Increasing trust among Black communities requires the medical profession to become more trustworthy," the study authors write. "Part of building trust is increasing the opportunity for members of underrepresented groups to be in positions of authority, including as principal investigators and physicians."

The Black-White infant mortality gap has significantly increased since the 1950s. As of the 2010s, Black infants are more than twice as likely to die as White infants in the United States.

There are currently 31 Black women serving in the 119th Congress: two senators, two non-voting delegates, and 27 members of the House of Representatives. Of the 64 Black women to ever serve in the U.S. Congress, over half have been elected within the past 12 years.

An observational study from the University of Notre Dame's Gwendolyn Purifoye and Morehouse College's Derrick Brooms has found that Black men - both passengers and transit workers - are frequently ignored and discriminated by others while using public transportation.

In a study of NYC public schools, more positive teacher perceptions of school climate, higher years of teaching experience, and a greater share of Black teachers resulted in lower discipline rates for all students, and especially for Black and Latinx students.

In an online experiment using two short documentary films, viewers consistently rated Black women scientists as less warm and less competent than Black men and White scientists of both genders, particularly when they introduced a White test subject.

When an online platform uses a five-star rating scale, non-White gig workers receive lower ratings, on average, than their White counterparts, resulting in a 9 percentage point income gap. However, changing the rating scale to a simple thumbs up/thumbs down nearly eliminates this racial disparity.

"Investing in HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs yields exponential returns, as these institutions serve as engines of economic growth, social mobility, and ladders of opportunity for millions of students and their communities," write the authors. "Their work goes beyond addressing historical inequities; it is essential to building a stronger, more inclusive, and more competitive future for the nation."