More Americans graduating from high school; numbers almost equal between blacks and whites

Jet, August 18, 1997

More and more people are getting their high school diplomas and the numbers are about even when divided between the races, according to a recent Census Bureau report.

Jennifer Day, chief of the bureau's education and social stratification branch, said in USA Today that 82 percent of all Americans earned a high school diploma by age 25 in 1996. At the same time the percentage jumped to 87 percent for young adults ages 25 to 29.

There is virtually no gap between Blacks and Whites when it comes to earning high school diplomas. Eighty-seven percent of Whites and 86 percent of Blacks completed high school by the time they reached the ages of 25 to 29 years old, says the report, which is based on a sample survey conducted annually.

The number of college graduates is also rising. Day said 23.6 percent of Americans ages 25 and over had bachelor's degrees in 1996 compared with 23 percent in 1995. For younger adults, 27.1 percent completed college compared with 24.7 percent a year earlier.

Anne Bryant, executive director of the National School Boards Association, said the Census Bureau data are "a tremendous success story."