In the academic
world, the last decade has heard the term “a professional degree is the new
undergraduate degree.” This may reign true in a struggling economy with job
opportunities becoming both more specialized and scarce by the year. However,
this term is implied for the white population. The article “A Black College Student
Has the Same Chances as a White High School Dropout, “A recent study done by Young Invincible,
a national non-profit aimed at empowering young Americans, revealed a painful
reminder of white superiority in the United States. The study, focusing
primarily on the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as well as the U.S. Census
revealed that African Americans need an extra two years of higher education to
reach the same occupational opportunities as their white counterparts.
The
study worked to isolate the effects of race and ethnicity on the probability of
obtaining similar jobs. What it revealed was that an African American who has
obtained an Associate’s Degree, which requires completion of college courses,
will have the same probability of getting a job as a less qualified white
person who has a high school diploma. This reveals an unfortunate achievement
gap tilted in the white populations favor.
The
numbers in the graph above reveal the inequality between whites and blacks in
the hiring process in regards to education attainment. Where the gap is most
dramatic is in those with not high school diploma. Blacks with no high school
diploma are nearly 15% less likely to receive employment than whites. The graph
however reveals a trend. Possibly of obtaining a job seems to become more equal
with the higher amount of education received. Blacks with a high school diploma
are about 12% less likely to have a job than whites, while having some college
lessens the gap to about 10%, associates about 6%, while bachelors lessens the
achievement gap to less than 5%. With the highest professional degree, there is
a very small gap at about 2%, showing that in today’s society, the way to
lessen inequality in the hiring process for blacks and whites is to stay in
school and earn advanced degrees, which is more attainable for whites for a
number of different reasons including high school quality, connections, etc…
Naturally,
with employment opportunities being more prevalent for whites, unemployment has
a more significant impact on the black population. A study done by the Young Invincible
group looked at blacks and whites ages 18-34 during the great recession of 2008,
and what they found was revealing of racial inequality. Not taking education
into account this time, blacks were 16.6% likely to be unemployed, while whites
were less than half that number, falling at a 7.1% unemployment rate.
The
graph below reveals that after the peak of the recession, from November of 2007
to May of 2014, though the numbers seemed to move in tandem with one another,
whites maintained a higher percentage of employment, at times as much as 10%, further showing the favoring
of the white population in the achievement gap, even during times of economic
failure.
In today's world where everyone says a college degree is key to success, it blows my mind to hear that even with a college degree, black graduates have the same chances as white high school dropouts. I like how figure 1 was included because it really helped visualize that employment gap narrowing as the number of educational degrees increased. The disparities of education and resulting employment opportunities parallels with the achievement gap in Academic Profiling between students in IB and College Prep. While this post deals more with black and whites specifically, those gaps are still present because IB students have more resources to fuel a stronger education and therefore more future opportunities to excel in the employment field. However, the students of the College Prep courses have few resources and opportunities that would later help them find employment. Even with a higher education, according to the figures presented above, blacks still struggle to fulfill the gap between races and perceived ability.
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