Graduation Rates by Ethnicity

hawkette · May 18, 2008, 9:41am

In looking at some graduation data provided by the NCAA for the class entering 200-01, I saw that they broke this data down by ethnicity. I did a survey of the USNWR Top 30 National Universities and of the USNWR Top 20 LACs and came up with the following comparisons for the major ethnic groups (Black, Asian, Hispanic) along with the overall graduation rates for each college.

Note: For some reason, the Ivy colleges do not report their graduation date (either for all students or student-athletes) to the NCAA. If anyone has this information, please post it. Thanks.

6-Year Black Graduation Rate , All Students 6-Year Graduation Rate , National University

93% , 89% , Caltech
90% , 95% , Stanford
90% , 91% , Wash U
88% , 93% , Northwestern
88% , 87% , Wake Forest
87% , 87% , Vanderbilt
87% , 92% , U Virginia
86% , 93% , Duke
86% , 91% , Rice
86% , 95% , Notre Dame
86% , 93% , Georgetown
86% , 89% , Johns Hopkins
85% , 93% , MIT
82% , 87% , Emory
81% , 91% , Tufts
78% , 88% , U Chicago
75% , 82% , USC
74% , 88% , UCLA
73% , 87% , UC Berkeley
73% , 83% , U North Carolina
72% , 85% , Carnegie Mellon
70% , 86% , U Michigan

6-Year Black Graduation Rate , All Students 6-Year Graduation Rate , Liberal Arts College

94% , 92% , Wellesley
92% , 96% , Amherst
90% , 96% , Williams
89% , 92% , Swarthmore
87% , 85% , Pomona-Pitzer
87% , 91% , Wesleyan
87% , 88% , Grinnell
87% , 85% , Smith
85% , 90% , Davidson
84% , 91% , Haverford
83% , 84% , Claremont McK-Harvey Mudd
83% , 89% , Vassar
83% , 87% , Hamilton
81% , 90% , Colgate
76% , 91% , Bowdoin
72% , 90% , Carleton
72% , 92% , Middlebury
72% , 88% , W&L

6-Year Asian Graduation Rate % , All Students 6-Year Graduation Rate , National University

96% , 95% , Stanford
96% , 91% , Rice
96% , 93% , Georgetown
96% , 93% , MIT
95% , 93% , Northwestern
94% , 92% , U Virginia
94% , 95% , Notre Dame
93% , 93% , Duke
93% , 91% , Tufts
92% , 91% , Wash U
92% , 89% , Johns Hopkins
91% , 89% , Caltech
91% , 88% , U Chicago
91% , 88% , UCLA
91% , 87% , UC Berkeley
90% , 87% , Emory
89% , 86% , U Michigan
86% , 87% , Vanderbilt
86% , 82% , USC
86% , 85% , Carnegie Mellon
85% , 87% , Wake Forest
82% , 83% , U North Carolina

6-Year Asian Graduation Rate % , All Students 6-Year Graduation Rate , Liberal Arts College

97% , 96% , Amherst
95% , 96% , Williams
95% , 92% , Swarthmore
95% , 88% , Grinnell
95% , 90% , Davidson
94% , 92% , Wellesley
92% , 92% , Middlebury
90% , 89% , Vassar
90% , 90% , Colgate
89% , 91% , Haverford
89% , 91% , Bowdoin
88% , 85% , Pomona-Pitzer
88% , 91% , Wesleyan
87% , 87% , Hamilton
86% , 84% , Claremont McK-Harvey Mudd
86% , 88% , W&L
85% , 90% , Carleton
83% , 85% , Smith

6-year Hispanic Graduation Rate % , All Students 6-Year Graduation Rate , National University

94% , 95% , Notre Dame
93% , 95% , Stanford
93% , 93% , Northwestern
92% , 93% , Duke
91% , 93% , Georgetown
90% , 92% , U Virginia
88% , 91% , Wash U
88% , 88% , U Chicago
86% , 91% , Rice
86% , 87% , Emory
85% , 87% , Wake Forest
84% , 93% , MIT
84% , 89% , Johns Hopkins
84% , 89% , Caltech
84% , 87% , Vanderbilt
84% , 83% , U North Carolina
82% , 91% , Tufts
81% , 88% , UCLA
80% , 82% , USC
79% , 85% , Carnegie Mellon
78% , 87% , UC Berkeley
78% , 86% , U Michigan

6-year Hispanic Graduation Rate % , All Students 6-Year Graduation Rate , Liberal Arts College

94% , 96% , Amherst
93% , 96% , Williams
92% , 91% , Haverford
89% , 92% , Wellesley
89% , 85% , Smith
88% , 92% , Middlebury
88% , 91% , Wesleyan
86% , 90% , Davidson
85% , 85% , Pomona-Pitzer
83% , 92% , Swarthmore
83% , 89% , Vassar
81% , 84% , Claremont McK-Harvey Mudd
79% , 90% , Colgate
79% , 87% , Hamilton
79% , 88% , W&L
79% , 90% , Carleton
78% , 88% , Grinnell
78% , 91% , Bowdoin

rjkofnovi · May 18, 2008, 9:57am

So hawkette. What are we to infer with this all important data? I have a feeling I already know what's coming.

Bourne · May 18, 2008, 10:03am

So what do we get from this?

At big schools student athletes bring the grad percentage down for certain races? And at small schools I have no clue.

hawkette · May 18, 2008, 10:51am

bourne,
The data is for ALL students, not just student-athletes. I doubt that the athletes at schools with larger enrollments are numerous enough to materially affect the results.

rjko,
I'm putting the information out there and looking for any insights that people might glean from the data.

When I created the data, I was struck by the performance of the LACs. They pride themselves on the high touch environment that they offer and I think their numbers would support an argument that says a minority student on their campus is less likely to fall through the cracks than at many of their national university peers.

I was also struck by the very impressive achievements by Asian students who, in the great majority of cases, graduated at the same or better level as the overall student body. This is the stereotype that we all read and hear about, but these numbers provide some quantifiable support to that line of thinking.

Special recognition should go to Pomona-Pitzer which I think is the only school that graduated each of the ethnic groups of blacks, asians & hispanics at the same or higher rate as the rest of the college.

interesteddad · May 18, 2008, 12:57pm

Be careful. The cohort sizes for subgroups at the small LACs is so small that a several students graduating or not can signficantly change the percentages.

If you follow the grad rates for a single small college over time, you see major year to year fluctuation in graduation rates for these small ethnic subgroups. For example, I think the 83% Latino/a grad rate at Swarthmore for the year shown above was preceded by a year with a 100% grad rate.

You've not looked at the more interesting data: the widespread gap between female and male grad rates, especially within the ethnic minority groups. Again, from following Swarthmore's splits over several years, females of all ethnicities graduate at very, very high rates (i.e. 95% or above). Males graduate at lower rates for all groups -- slightly lower for whites and Asian Americans, sometimes much lower for Latino and African American groups.

interesteddad · May 18, 2008, 1:03pm

BTW, here's a searchable database tool that allows you to look up graduation rates for any school:

The</a> Education Trust - Closing the Achievement Gap

Play around with the resulting data pages and you can look at a wide variety of breakdowns and comparisons.

hawkette · May 18, 2008, 1:50pm

I agree with your points about small numbers of students having a potentially outsized effect on the percentages for the LACs and this is why I have kept them separate.

Thanks for the link as I was able to gather similar data for the Ivy colleges. For the national universities ranked in the USNWR Top 30, here is how they compare on 6-year graduation rates for Black students, for Asian students, and Hispanic students.

6-year Black Graduation Rate % , All Students 6-year Graduation Rate % , College

96% , 97% , Yale
94% , 97% , Princeton
93% , 89% , Caltech
92% , 98% , Harvard
92% , 95% , Brown
90% , 95% , Stanford
90% , 91% , Wash U
88% , 93% , Northwestern
88% , 87% , Wake Forest
87% , 87% , Vanderbilt
87% , 92% , U Virginia
87% , 94% , Dartmouth
87% , 94% , U Penn
86% , 93% , Duke
86% , 91% , Rice
86% , 95% , Notre Dame
86% , 93% , Georgetown
86% , 89% , Johns Hopkins
85% , 93% , MIT
83% , 92% , Columbia
83% , 93% , Cornell
82% , 87% , Emory
81% , 91% , Tufts
78% , 88% , U Chicago
75% , 82% , USC
74% , 88% , UCLA
73% , 87% , UC Berkeley
73% , 83% , U North Carolina
72% , 85% , Carnegie Mellon
70% , 86% , U Michigan

6-Year Asian Graduation Rate %, All Students 6-year Graduation Rate %, College

99% , 98% , Harvard
99% , 97% , Princeton
97% , 97% , Yale
96% , 95% , Stanford
96% , 91% , Rice
96% , 93% , Georgetown
96% , 95% , Brown
96% , 93% , MIT
95% , 93% , Northwestern
95% , 94% , U Penn
94% , 95% , Notre Dame
94% , 92% , U Virginia
94% , 92% , Columbia
93% , 93% , Duke
93% , 94% , Dartmouth
93% , 93% , Cornell
93% , 91% , Tufts
92% , 91% , Wash U
92% , 89% , Johns Hopkins
91% , 87% , UC Berkeley
91% , 88% , UCLA
91% , 89% , Caltech
91% , 88% , U Chicago
90% , 87% , Emory
89% , 86% , U Michigan
86% , 87% , Vanderbilt
86% , 82% , USC
86% , 85% , Carnegie Mellon
85% , 87% , Wake Forest
82% , 83% , U North Carolina

6-Year Hispanic Graduation Rate % , All Students 6-year Graduation Rate % , College

99% , 97% , Yale
96% , 98% , Harvard
95% , 94% , U Penn
94% , 94% , Dartmouth
94% , 95% , Notre Dame
93% , 95% , Brown
93% , 95% , Stanford
93% , 93% , Northwestern
92% , 93% , Duke
91% , 93% , Georgetown
90% , 97% , Princeton
90% , 92% , U Virginia
90% , 93% , Cornell
89% , 92% , Columbia
88% , 91% , Wash U
88% , 88% , U Chicago
86% , 91% , Rice
86% , 87% , Emory
85% , 87% , Wake Forest
84% , 89% , Caltech
84% , 87% , Vanderbilt
84% , 89% , Johns Hopkins
84% , 93% , MIT
84% , 83% , U North Carolina
82% , 91% , Tufts
81% , 88% , UCLA
80% , 82% , USC
79% , 85% , Carnegie Mellon
78% , 87% , UC Berkeley
78% , 86% , U Michigan

keefer · May 18, 2008, 1:59pm

it's peculiar that the list ends with Michigan.....(oh i get what you are saying!!)

rjkofnovi · May 18, 2008, 2:00pm

Hawkette just loves to print stats that show the larger publics in general, and the University of Michigan in particular, at the bottom of the lists. What exactly is your purpose of these lists hawkette? As if most of us don't know already.

interesteddad · May 18, 2008, 2:10pm

Of course the large publics are going to have lower graduation rates.

Graduation rates correlate with family income. The biggest single reason that students fail to graduate is that they run out of money.

Since SATs correlate with family income as well, there is also a correlation between SATs and graduation rates. It's all part of the same socio-economic puzzle.

Because elite private colleges cater largely to rich folk, they will, of course, have higher grad rates than a large state university that caters to a much broader demographic.

And, yeah, yeah...I know about financial aid at hoity-toit private colleges. The fact remains that roughly half of their customers are well-heeled enought to write a check for full-sticker price ($45,000) each year. Of course, little Biffy and Buffy are going to graduate on time. It's not like they have to drop out to get a job and support the family.

hawkette · May 18, 2008, 3:01pm

keefer & rjko,
I have been posting various datapoints on colleges for over two years and 90%+ of the time, it has been either the USNWR Top 20 or the USNWR Top 30. In answer to the requests of some for more data on LACs, I added this information to this thread. In all, I have posted information on this thread for 50 colleges.

Gathering the information takes a lot of time and a lot of effort. If you'd like to do a little work and some analysis and provide additional information, I think that would be a heckuva lot more constructive and helpful than complaining about how your school looks in a comparison.

Interresteddad,
Probably you are correct that size and income are factors in how the public schools compare, but U Virginia has done a terrific job with their URM graduation statistics. According to the data that I found in the Education Trust link, U Virginia’s graduation rates for URMs have outperformed many high-ranking privates (including Harvard, U Penn, Brown, and Yale) when you contrast the URM graduation rate with the overall student body graduation rate. Compared to other top publics, this strong performance may be due to their relatively low numbers of Pell grantees, but that is also the case for several of the elite privates that it outperforms.

Shrinkrap · May 18, 2008, 3:46pm

I found male vs. female on education trust interesting. I wonder how it correlates with HS GPA, SAT, and SAT writing scores.

hawkette · May 18, 2008, 5:45pm

shrinknap,

Here is how the women graduate vs their male counterparts at the USNWR Top 30 national universities and the USNWR Top 20 LACs.

I have segregated the publics as some may want to see them more directly compared against one another.

Note: Some data was not available for Bowdoin and W&L and, of course, Wellesley and Smith are for women only.

Graduation Rate for Women-Graduation Rate for Men (6-year) , College

8% , Rice
5% , USC
5% , Wake Forest
5% , Columbia
4% , Cornell
4% , MIT
4% , Emory
4% , Carnegie Mellon
3% , Notre Dame
3% , Georgetown
2% , U Penn
2% , Johns Hopkins
1% , Duke
1% , Northwestern
1% , Yale
1% , Princeton
1% , Dartmouth
1% , Brown
0% , Stanford
0% , Harvard
0% , U Chicago
0% , Tufts
-1% , Caltech
-2% , Vanderbilt
-2% , Wash U

Graduation Rate for Women-Graduation Rate for Men (6-year) , College

6% , UC Berkeley
6% , U North Carolina
5% , U Virginia
3% , UCLA
1% , U Michigan

Graduation Rate for Women-Graduation Rate for Men (6-year) , College

9% , Swarthmore
9% , Claremont McK-Harvey Mudd
3% , Hamilton
2% , Wesleyan
2% , Grinnell
2% , Vassar
1% , Williams
1% , Carleton
1% , Pomona-Pitzer
1% , Davidson
0% , Amherst
0% , Middlebury
0% , Colgate
-2% , Haverford
na , Wellesley
na , Bowdoin
na , W&L
na , Smith

interesteddad · May 18, 2008, 8:14pm

Again, be careful with small cohort sizes and extreme year to year variability with the LACs.

Case in point: Swarthmore's 6-year grad rates by gender:

2002
92.8% Male
91.2% Female

2003
86.7% Male
96.4% Female

2004
89.3% Male
92.7% Female

2005
87.5% Male
97.4% Female

You really have to do five year running averages or you get caught up analyzing anomolies.

Bourne · May 18, 2008, 9:21pm

That's the point Hawkette...

The millions or so football players that Michigan historically fails to graduate might be a factor in that low graduation rate for Michigan?

hawkette · May 18, 2008, 10:16pm

Bourne,
In order to explain the differences in graduation rates between URMs and all students, I don’t think that the numbers of athletes are high enough to move the needle and almost certainly not enough for the colleges with large enrollments, eg, your example of U Michigan.

6000 = U Michigan incoming freshmen

420 = 7% of the class which is African-American

23 = Average number of African Americans on football team, or only 5% of the entering students

13 = Average number of African Americans on football team who graduate within 6 years (according to the NCAA, black U Michigan football players graduate at 56% rate)

I think it is pretty clear from these numbers that any issues related to African American or other URM graduation rates are only marginally impacted by the athletics program at the national universities.

Alexandre · May 18, 2008, 11:05pm

At Michigan, Asians, Caucasians and Internationals graduate at a rate of 90%. URMs graduate at a rate of 73%. The gap is due to two factors:

1) URMs are held to a much lower admissions standard. A sub 3.7 GPA (unweighed), sub 1300/28 SAT/ACT non-URM student has virtually no chance of getting into Michigan. That is not the case withy URMs, who are routinely admitted with sub 3.5 GPAs and sub 1250/27 SAT/ACT scores.

2) Michigan does not yet have the means to financially support all of the lower income students, most of which are URMs.

The latter also explains why Michigan's graduation rates among Asians and Caucasians is only 90% and not higher.

hawkette · May 19, 2008, 9:15am

alex,
I know that U Michigan attracts a very strong student body, but I don't think your comment above is fully accurate.

According to the most recent CDS, the 25/75 SAT/ACT for U Michigan is 1220/27, so that means that at least 25% of the entering class scored at that level or below. If American Indians, blacks, and Hispanics represent less than 11% of the incoming class (and I would hope that not all of them are scoring at these levels), then aren't there reasonable numbers of other ethnicities (whites, Asians, other) who are also getting in with those lower scores and not just URMs?

I am also surprised at your comment about the financial resources to support lower income students. Given U Michigan's large endowment, I didn't realize that this was an issue. I thought that U Michigan was need-blind in its admissions and was able to meet 100% of a student's financial needs. Am I misinterpreting your post?

Alexandre · May 19, 2008, 9:53am

Hawkette, Michigan's endowment is indeed huge, tied with Columbia at #6 in the nation. But remember that Michigan has 41,000 students, and must support top 10 Engineering and Medical programs (which are extremely expensive to maintain). Michigan is not yet in a position to be need blind to 100% of its students. It is definitely moving in the right direction, but at the moment, I would say Michigan meets 90%-100% of in-staters' demonstrated need, but more like 80% of out-of-staters' demonstrated needs.

As for the strength of the student body, Michigan is hard to read. First of all, students with sub 1220 SAT/27 ACT are not necessarily weak. 20% of Brown, Chicago, Columbia and Cornell students have sub-27 ACT scores and 33%-43% have ACT scores of 29 or less. Of course, that is not to say that Michigan's student body is as strong as Brown's or Chicago's or Columbia's. However, sub 28 ACT scores are not at all uncommon, even at some of the most selective universities. SAT/ACT scores are not always an indication of academic or intellectual potential. My sisters did not break the 1100 mark and they both graduated from solid universities (GWU and Georgetown) with 3.7+ GPAs. Secondly, 15% of Michigan students are either enrolled in the college of Nursing, Art & Architecture, Music and Kinesiology. Those students, on average, have lower standardized test scores and GPAs than students enrolled in the college of LSA, Engineering or Business. That does not mean they aren't gifted. Michigan's schools of Nursing, Art & Architecture, Kinesiology and Music are all ranked among the top 5 nationally. Those students are very gifted students, but not in the traditional sense of the word. The mid 50% SAT/ACT range at those three colleges (LSA, Engineering and Ross) combined, although not officially calculated, is more like 1350 (unweighed)/30.

hawkette · May 19, 2008, 10:54am

alex,
Re your response above to my question of there being more lower scoring students outside of the Black/Hispanic/Amer Indian group, I take your answer as "yes."

Also, don't LSA, Engineering, and Ross represent over 90% of the students at U Michigan?

On the ethnicity question, do you know what the numbers are within U Michigan's Honors College, ie, how many total students are in this program and how many are URMs and what is the breakdown by group?

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