Clouded optimism: graduate and professional degree rate among minorities outpaces that of whites, but experts predict surge will end if affirmative action backlash continues - Special Report: Top 100 Graduate & Professional Degree Producers

Black Issues in Higher Education, July 24, 1997 by Ronald Roach

The numbers of African Americans earning graduate degrees at American colleges and universities from 1991 to 1995 increased at rates more than double the general graduate student population.

Particularly noteworthy were the gains of African Americans earning masters degrees. From 1991 to 1995, the annual average percent increase was 9.6 percent for African Americans earning master's degrees compared to a 4 percent annual average increase for all students.

Other minority groups experienced similar growth rates in students earning graduate degrees. Between 1991 and 1995 Asian Americans and Hispanics both had a 9.5 percent annual average increase in earning master's degrees; anti Native Americans posted a 8 percent annual average increase during the same period.

Education experts attribute the impressive growth figures largely to efforts by universities to recruit and retain minorities at graduate programs during the 1980s and early 1990s.

"What you see is the result of many years of work," Dr. Anne Pruitt, a scholar-in-residence at the Washington, D.C.-based Council of Graduate Schools, said of minority outreach and retention program development at the nation's graduate and professional schools.

Pruitt, who has served as an associate dean at Ohio State University, noted that during the 1980s the development of mentoring initiatives, special research and fellowship programs, and other retention programs helped bring about a more favorable climate at many campuses for minority graduate and professional students.

The optimistic assessment of minority progress in graduate and professional education is clouded, however, by the recent setbacks to affirmative action programs in Texas and California, according to many observers.

"I worry the anti-affirmative action developments here in California will have a chilling effect on the numbers of Black students enrolling and earning degrees at the graduate level," said Dr. Walter Allen, a UCLA sociologist who has studied African American participation in American higher education extensively.

In California, the passage of Proposition 209, which has banned the use of racial preferences in higher education and other public programs, has already led to a precipitous drop in the admissions of African American students at California's public law schools. At the University of California-Berkeley law school, fourteen Blacks were accepted in a class of 792, down from seventy-five in 1996, according to the Washington Post. At UCLA's law-school, twenty-one Black students were chosen for this fall's class - an 80 percent decrease from last year.

A 1996 ruling by the U.S. Fifth Court of Appeals in Hopwood v. The State of Texas case prompted Texas officials to abandon the use of race as a factor in admissions at Texas public colleges and universities. Admissions of African Americans and Hispanics to University of Texas law school in Austin for the 1997-98 entering class fell far below previous year totals. Five African American students - compared with sixty-five in 1996 - were admitted to this fall's entering law school class.

Allen hopes the falling numbers of African Americans and Hispanics being [TABULAR DATA OMITTED] admitted to law schools in Texas and California are giving policymakers around the country some pause as they reconsider affirmative action programs. He fears, however, that many officials and conservative activists, emboldened by developments in California and Texas, are working even harder to export anti-affirmative action initiatives to other states.

What many affirmative action opponents in California have missed in their zeal to dismantle programs is that California has developed one of the nation's best-ranked state systems of higher education with affirmative action as a core policy, according to Allen. He said he believes California's highly rated higher education programs will suffer as a result of the ban on affirmative action. Minority students will either seek opportunities out-of-state or at private schools, or not seek them at all, Allen said.

Five Year Trends in Total Degrees by Race/Ethnicity and Degree Level

                                  Academic Year
                 1990-91    1991-92    1992-93    1993-94    1994-95

Non-Resident Alien

Master's          37,556     39,570     44,094     46,505     48,152
Doctoral           9,821     10,645     11,434     11,530     11,097
Total             47,377     50,215     55,528     58,035     59,249

African American

Master's          15,818     17,379     18,904     20,892     22,842
Doctoral           1,210      1,201      1,303      1,345      1,615
Total             17,028     18,580     20,207     22,237     24,457

Native American

Master's           1,125      1,221      1,347      1,618      1,531
Doctoral             104        118        105        132        129
Total              1,229      1,339      1,452      1,750      1,660

Asian American

Master's          10,952     12,184     13,182     14,541     15,764
Doctoral           1,451      1,544      1,510      1,937      2,529
Total             12,403     13,728     14,692     16,478     18,293

Hispanic

Master's           8,456      9,043     10,201     11,318     12,175
Doctoral             734        798        802        870        929
Total              9,190      9,841     11,003     12,188     13,104

While

Master's         247,251    256,926    265,874    273,900    275,841
Doctoral          24,851     25,251     25,830     26,138     26,447
Total            272,102    282,177    291,704    300,038    302,228

Unknown

Master's          15,772     16,511     16,567     18,611     18,293
Doctoral           1,105      1,037      1,053      1,259      1,447
Total             16,877     17,548     17,620     19,870     19,740

Grand Total

Master's         336,930    352,834    370,169    387,385    394,598
Doctoral          39,276     40,594     42,037     43,211     44,193
Total            376,206    393,428    412,206    430,596    438,791

Source: Black Issues In Higher Education analysis of U.S. Department
of Education data, 1994-95.