The third view of representation shown in the last three rows of this table focuses on the percentage of each racial/ethnic group that received a bachelor’s degree from each of these three types of institutions. Overall, exactly one half of all students receive a bachelor’s degree from a moderately selective, public institution and 4 percent are represented in each of the “highly selective, private-nonprofit” and “proprietary” categories. The percentage of all African-American bachelor’s degree recipients who fall into these first two categories is just one percentage point lower than this overall benchmark and again we see the overrepresentation of African-Americans in the proprietary sector. For both Hispanics and Native Americans, there is slight overrepresentation among the large “moderately selective, public” and small “proprietary” sectors. Asian Americans exhibit a notably different pattern according to this view, with significant overrepresentation in both the “highly selective, private-nonprofit” and the “moderately selective, public” categories and slight underrepresentation in the proprietary sector.
At the beginning of this article, I suggested that you review critically the information presented throughout this special edition of Diverse. Each year, I receive a modest number of e-mail messages and calls regarding a particular number for a particular school on a particular list. While I don’t expect the volume of such messages to decrease, I would enjoy seeing more questions, suggestions and ideas about how this analysis and these lists can be used to promote efforts to increase educational achievement levels of students of color.
— Dr. Victor M. H. Borden is associate vice president and associate professor at Indiana University.
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