Traditionally White Colleges Are Closing the Achievement Gap

By

Sherman N. Miller

 8/26/2006

The deleterious fallout of the Bell Shape Curve movement suggesting a substandard black caricature once offered legitimacy to the existence of a Black American academic achievement gap with White America. Yet some Traditionally White Colleges are starting to show that this black / white achieve gap is an illusion when one starts to look at college graduation rates.

            The bachelor level degree is worth roughly 2.1 million dollars in earnings over the degree holder’s lifetime. Thus, earning the degree is a key factor in gauging the upward mobility of the black community. Since Traditionally White Colleges help African Americans receive roughly 75 percent of today’s bachelor level degrees, their ability to close the achievement gap between blacks and whites is a key barometer of the black community’s upward mobility.   

            Kevin Carey, in an article A Matter of Degrees: Improving Graduation Rates in Four-Year Colleges and Universities, offers the black leadership plenty to ponder when debating the black / white achievement gap and the role of the Traditionally White College: 

“. . . Consider, for example, Binghamton University, one of the university centers in the State University of New York (SUNY) system. A ‘highly competitive’ doctoral and research institution, Binghamton has an undergraduate population of 10,000, of whom about 12% are members of under-represented minority groups. Its six-year graduation rate is 79%, significantly above the median rate of 70% among its closest peers.

The median African American graduation rate at Binghamton’s peer institutions is 59%, 11 percentage points lower than the rate for all students in those schools and 13 points below the rate for white students. Binghamton, on the other hand, has an African American graduation rate of 77%, a full 18 percentage points higher than the average for its peer group, and virtually the same as its overall rate and rate for white students. Above-average success at Binghamton isn’t confined to only some groups.

Or look at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, a ‘competitive’ doctoral-degree granting institution whose 15,000 students are 16% minority. Among ECU’s peers, the median overall grad rate is 41% and the median rate for African American students is 32%. At East Carolina, the graduation rate for all students is 54%, a rate that has increased every year since 1997. The rate for African American students is six percentage points higher: at 60% almost double the rate of other, similar universities. This number isn’t a one-year fluke. African American graduation rates at East Carolina exceed those of white students even when averaged over the last four years.”

            Traditionally White Colleges and Universities can educate African American students without worrying about a significant deterioration in their graduation rates. The Binghamton University and East Carolina University experiences suggest that black students will seek academic excellence as their norm if their college or university provides the appropriate atmosphere.  Clearly Black Americans seeking a college education at a Traditionally White College ought to consider universities such as Binghamton University and East Carolina University because you have a good chance of graduating with the bachelor level degree versus being hamstrung by spending six years of your life at an institution only to leave without a degree and with a high tuition debt.

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