@roethlisburger What Constitutional Amendment bans racial discrimination? Does it say that, because if it does, it has done a pretty bad job of banning it over the years. Some of the amendments (13-15) banned slavery, equal protection under the law (the amendment that is being used in Harvard lawsuit) and addressed certain civil rights (like the right to vote) but to ban racial discrimination? I wish that it banned racial discrimination like slavery was banned, but not quite. Those amendments were passed in the 1860’s and there was a full 100 years of blatant racial discrimination under its watch. So it is hard for me to trust the interpretation of the Constitution when it comes to that topic. It is actually the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (good old regular old law passed by Congress) which has come closest to trying to ban types of discrimination (missed LGBTQ however), but it is also used as the reasoning used behind AA. I don’t believe in using discrimination to help others overcome discrimination, but the fight (over maybe 300+ URM spots a year at Harvard from those 40,000+ applicants who were rejected) is going to end up with a lot of students still upset year after year.
The equal protection clause of the 14th amendment bans discrimination on the basis of race.
Actual court (including Supreme Court) decisions suggest that it is much more complicated than that.
@roethlisburger I am just telling you to be careful counting on the 14th amendment. They have found many ways to get around the equal protection clause. They could say, the student did not get into Harvard as a Biology major, but got into College X as a biology major (separate but equal) so no harm no foul. They could say what has worked the last 30 years (That colleges have the right, up to a point to use race) because of the inequities present in today’s society and they will point out that there are almost as many Asian Americans as there are URM on Harvard’s campus so where is the discrimination? The SCOTUS may see through those arguments, but I would not be surprised with anything that happens with the 14th amendment because it has been interpreted in weird ways historically.
The reasons for different graduation rate are complex and go far beyond racial admissions preferences. At HYPS… type colleges students are generally not failing out. I’d expect things like leaving for financial and personal/family issues play a larger role. I haven’t seen much research at HYPS… schools specifically. One of the only studies I have seen is https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1014&context=student , which has been discussed before in this thread. It looks at the racial graduation gap at an unspecified Ivy with a fairly large gap in graduation rates between races (probably Cornell). It mentions that the 6-year graduation rate for Black females was 10 percentage points higher than the 6-year graduation rate for Black males, and gender was the only analyzed variable that was significant at a 5% or better level in predicting Black graduation. SAT score had a mixed correlation. A lower verbal score and higher math score was correlated with an increased graduation rate among Black students after full controls. The author writes:
Another study that looks at a more extensively list of what characteristics are associated with graduation rate among all colleges (not just HYPSM…) is at https://heri.ucla.edu/DARCU/CompletingCollege2011.pdf . Some of the more significant predictors of failing to graduate after controls for stats and race among other things, include things like planning to live off campus and planning to pursue engineering or health.
A summary of 6-year graduation rates for highly selective colleges as listed in the most recent IPEDS year is below. For Caltech race percentages, I instead averaged over the past 5 years due to small sample size of Black students. In this sample, the racial gap in graduation rate appears to be larger at colleges that do not consider race in admissions, rather than smaller. It certainly doesn’t suggest removing racial preferences in admission will end the graduation rate gap.
HYPSMC Graduation Rate
Harvard: 0% White - Black graduation gap, 3% Female - Male graduation gap
Yale: 1% White - Black graduation gap, 1% Female - Male graduation gap
Princeton: 4% White - Black graduation gap, 2% Female - Male graduation gap
Stanford: 4% White - Black graduation gap, 1% Female - Male graduation gap
MIT: 9% White - Black graduation gap, 4% Female - Male graduation gap
Caltech: 18% White - Black graduation gap, 5% Female - Male graduation gap
Selective Public Colleges: Graduation Rate
UC Berkeley: 8% White - Black graduation gap, 4% Female - Male graduation gap
UCLA: 18% White - Black graduation gap, 5% Female - Male graduation gap
U Michigan: 8% White - Black graduation gap, 3% Female - Male graduation gap
U Virginia; 3% White - Black graduation gap, 3% Female - Male graduation gap
UNC Chapel Hill: 5% White - Black graduation gap, 4% Female - Male graduation gap
UM College Park: 6% White - Black graduation gap, 5% Female - Male graduation gap
The 14th Amendment of the US Constitution governs state action only – it does not in any way regulate or impede actions by private individuals or entities.
So a lawsuit against the state of Michigan or Texas or California because of claimed racial discrimination in their admission policies at the public universities their respective states have created and funded could be grounded on 14th Amendment claims.
But a lawsuit against a private college or university would need to rely on a statutory basis.
@Data10 Thank you for those, interesting to see the gap info laid out like that, but where did it come from? NCES?
I wondered if a URM (black in this case) 6 year grad rate was higher than white anywhere and it appears to be so at Caltech - Asian and white grad rates at 93% and black at 100%.
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=caltech&s=all&id=110404#retgrad
Whereas at MIT Asian 94%, white 96%, black 85%. (same source, NCES).
I wonder if the 6 year grad rate for women is lower than for men anywhere?
Typically there are very few Black students at CalTech, leading to a small sample size. It’s great they are all graduating, but even one failing to graduate would dramatically change those results.
Caltech has extraordinarily few black students. In the year you referenced, there were only 4 Black students. All 4 graduated, so the rate was listed as 100%. However, in 2013, only 2 of 6 graduated, so the graduation rate was a much poorer 33%. As mentioned in my post, I averaged the graduation rate for the most recent past 5 available years to lessen the small sample size issues. Instead of averaging graduation rate, a better way would be to sum to the total number of students and list the specific numbers of students, as done below.
Caltech Black Graduation Rate
2017 – 4 out of 4 graduated = 100%
2016 – 6 out of 8 graduated = 80%
2015 – 4 out of 8 graduated = 50%
2014 – 5 out of 5 graduated = 100%
2013 -- 2 out of 6 graduated = 33%
2013-17 – 21 out of 31 graduated = 68%
31 students is still an extremely small sample size with a high standard deviation, but it’s large enough to suggest there is a significant difference between the 91% White average graduation rate and 68% Black average graduate rate. I suspect part of the apparent very low for selective college Black graduation rate relates to the extremely small number of Black students. Students who are almost always the only Black kid in their class probably are more likely to feel that they don’t belong at the college. They also are less like to have special support networks in place.
Among selective academic colleges with <25% admit rate, only Harvey Mudd averaged a higher 6-year grad rate for men than women over the past 5 years. The most recent year in College Navigator is an exception. You can see more detailed stats on Harvey Mudd’s website at https://www.hmc.edu/institutional-research/institutional-statistics/institutional-statistics-graduates-and-alumni/graduation-rate-by-gender/ . Mudd had a higher female graduation rate in each of the past 2 years, and perhaps that trend will continue.
Among non-academic colleges, some selective military academies averaged a slightly higher graduation rate for men than women (less than 1%). At the other end, the following selective colleges had the largest graduation rate gap between men and women over the past 5 years:
GeorgiaTech – 82% Men, 88% Women
Lehigh – 85% Men, 90% Women
Olin – 90% Men, 95% Women
Rice – 89% Men, 94% Women
^ Obviously, colleges are discriminating against men. And it is pervasive, observed in all selective academic colleges with <25% admit rate except Mudd.
I never quite understand the obsession with 6-year graduation rates. If it takes you 6 years to graduate, you might as well not graduate. You’re obviously not fit for the college. At a school like Caltech, the likely cause that you don’t graduate in time is that you failed to pass its core courses which are required for any major. An extra 2 years won’t help.
@1NJParent I like 6 year rates because a degree is a degree. It doesn’t necessarily mean 6 years either (4 1/2, 5, or 5 1/2 years all fall in that window) and it might just be that a student needed another semester or 2 to double major, switch majors, wait for a class needed to graduate is offered, or because of failing/dropping classes. A school like CalTech takes no AP credits and probably gives very little outside credit so it makes it hard to get rid of electives. Engineering majors at some schools also have a hard time graduating in 4 years without coming in with some credit hours. And some schools push Co-Ops and internships that and that makes a 4 year degree hard to do. Check Georgia Tech’s 4 year rate and it is not what you would expect, because of the real world experience that they value.
Some schools also don’t take out their co-op students from their graduation rates. My daughter will technically graduate in 5 years but still only 8 semesters on campus.
@1NJParent I am glad I did not follow your advice.
I was not doing too well in college, had no idea what I wanted to major in and then got into a bit of trouble so I decided to drop out after my sophomore year. I went back after a semester as I realized that I did not want to do the work I was qualified to do and I wanted a degree.
My grades were very good after I returned I and I decided to be an accountant. I went to work at one of the Big 6 firms, switched to another and made partner. I retired ten years ago at 40. I would not have been able to do that if I had not gone back to college.
I can understand if a student takes an extra few months or a year because of a co-op program, or switching major, or health reason. But extra 2 years? You don’t wait until you’re a senior to switch major, do you? Colleges generally set up their curricula so that their students can graduate in 4 years and they make sure their students can take the required courses within that time.
There are many situations in which graduating in 4 years isn’t practical, even for excellent students at highly selective colleges. For example, at GeorgiaTech ~30% of students participate in their co-op program, which involves working at a company for 3 alternating semesters. Most co-ops do not take any classes during their work semesters, so it is considered a 5-year graduation program. Only ~40% of GeorgiaTech students graduate in 4 years. ~77% graduate in 5, and ~84% graduate in 6.
At Stanford, ~40% of undergrads majoring in tech fields simultaneously pursue a co-terminal master’s degree. Students can work towards both the BS and MS at the same time and typically graduate with both in 5 years. When I was a student, I was in two different co-terminal master’s programs, so on paper my expected graduation time would have been 6 years. ~1/3 of co-terms require 6 (or in rare cases more) years to graduate. Stanford also has a relatively low 4-year graduation rate compared to HYP and others where co-terminal master’s are less common.
A large portion of students at selective private colleges change majors. As you mentioned, changing to a major that requires a sequence of classes can delay graduation. Many also have additional responsibilities or activities outside of academics. Sports is a common example, but some also need to work a large number of hours to pay for school or have outside personal/family responsibilities. 6 year graduation rate is treated as a safe margin to accommodate these unique situations. 5 years may be sufficient, but the graduation rate still often increases between 5 and 6, even at highly selective colleges with excellent students.
Outside of bubbles of parental wealth and generosity, most college students need to work to help afford school, so they may attend light full time (12 credits instead of 15-16), attend part time some semesters, and/or take some semesters off to work. Many of these students are not attending the colleges with the best financial aid either. So this adds to the slow/late graduation rates.
Beyond such financial constraints, it is true that as admission selectivity goes down, graduation rates fall, since students with weaker entrance academic credentials are more likely to have difficulty passing a full course load each semester (even when there are no financial issues). But then are you saying that a high school B+ student with 1200 SAT should not attend college at all, whether immediately after high school or later, since https://www.heri.ucla.edu/GradRateCalculator.php suggests that a college full of such students (assuming white and 50% of each gender) would have a 4-year graduation rate of 42.9% and a 6-year graduation rate of 66.5%?
All these comments are helpful. However, I do think 6-year graduation rates aren’t that meaningful in judging colleges, especially the top-tier schools.
Yes, I do think some of these students would be better off attending trade schools. We should learn a few things from the Germans in that regard. Each student’s situation is likely to be different, and has to be looked at individually. Some are late bloomers, like @yeartogo, and they excel later in life, with or without formal college education.