Euphobia

As the number of White students receiving college degrees has stayed steady for the last five years, the number of African American, Hispanic. Asian. and Native American degree recipients has soared.

"It's real progress," says Dr. Michael Nettles, director of the Frederick D. Patterson Institute, the research and of The College Fund/UNCF. "It's phenomenal."

According to an analysis by Black Issues In Higher Education of the latest Department of Education data (see chart, page 23), the number of African Americans receiving associate degrees is increasing at a rate of 5.8 percent a year, while the number receiving bachelor's degrees is increasing at a rate of 5.6 percent a year, yielding a five-year growth rate of roughly 24 percent.

"It's good news. It's a good story," says Deborah Carter, director of the American Council on Education's (ACE) Office of Minority Al fairs. "We are seeing the benefits of the outreach and diversity efforts that colleges and universities have been making."

The increasing success of Blacks in higher education offers an optimistic contrast to other social trends -- such as the rising incarceration rate of African Americans over the last five years -- that have caused enormous concern among policy makers nationwide. Unlike the incarceration data, however, the increase in degree attainment has hardly been noticed:

"All we know is that on the higher education front, more African Americans are making the right choice -- and that is to pursue as much education as is available," Nettles says. "People are understanding the opportunities and the relationship of higher education to upward mobility."

The Fruits of the Labor

This year's Top 100 data reveal that African Americans aren't the only people of color achieving noteworthy progress in higher education.

The number of Latinos receiving degrees increased 7.8 percent a year for associate degrees and 8.6 percent for baccalaureates.

Even Native Americans, who have traditionally have had very low rates of participation in higher education, have increased the number of associate and baccalaureate degrees earned -- by 7.3 and 7.2 percent respectively.

Asian Americans have increased the number of degrees earned by somewhat higher percentages than other students of color. Associate degrees earned increased by a rate of 9.8 percent per year, and baccalaureate degrees increased by 7.4 percent. The increase in college going among Asian Americans has been widely documented, whereas that of other students of color has been widely overlooked.

By contrast, the number of Whites receiving associate degrees has increased by only 0.7 percent annually, and the number receiving baccalaureate degrees has actually declined by about 1.2 percent a year.

Demographers who were consulted for this article attribute the stagnation of White degree attainment to the "baby bust," in which the actual number of White people of traditional college age declined, after the bulge of the "baby boom." They expect those numbers to increase again when the children of baby boomers -- affectionately dubbed the "baby boom echo" -- reach college age in about five years. But the larger numbers of African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans are seen as a function of larger percentages of students of color going into higher education and completing their degrees.

"This follows the trends we've been seeing for a couple of years," ACE's Carter says. "We saw enrollment gains in the 1980s and 1990s. What we're seeing now are the fruits of that labor."

Nettles agrees: "The increase in Black participation [in higher education] is not happening automatically. There are people out there championing this movement."

Among initiatives cited by Nettles as examples of outreach were The College Fund/UNCF's program that encourages students to go into the disciplines of math and science, Upward Bound and other TRIO programs that encourage high school students to go to college, and the Mellon Minority Fellows Program, which has put $22 million into helping African American and Latino students to pursue advanced degrees in the sciences.

The `Euphobia' Surrounding Success

Kati Haycock, the head of Education Trust, a Washington, D.C.-based think-tank that has highlighted the education gap between African Americans and Whites a gap it attributes to a variety of factors including low expectations, curriculum tracking, poorly trained teachers, and unequal resources -- gave a cautious reading of the new numbers.

"The news on its face seems to be good news. But let's be careful," says Haycock, who points out that the gap between African Americans and Whites who hold college degrees still exists, though it is closing.

According to the latest analysis by the Patterson Research Institute, the percent of African American eighteen-to twenty-four-year-olds who were enrolled in higher education increased from 25 percent in 1985 to 36 percent in 1996, while Whites increased their percentages from 34 percent to 45 percent. Those are the kinds of figures -- the ones showing a continuing gap in college enrollment -- that keep Haycock from celebrating.

"People get complacent if they think things are improving," she says.

Haycock's caution mirrors that of ACE's Carter, who is concerned that affirmative action critics will conclude that the progress of students of color has been at the expense of White students.

This fear persists even though most students -- of any color -- are graduating from large, public institutions that are not highly selective and where affirmative action is not used because the schools accept most applicants.

Nettles refers to the caution displayed by both Haycock and Carter as "fear of good news," which he termed "euphobia."

"We're so accustomed to associating bad news with this issue that when we see good news, we get fearful and don't know what to do with it," Nettles says. "We have gotten people to rally around bad news to help. What we should do is use the good news to propel us to do more."

In short, Nettles says, "It's good news, but it can be better."

The Numbers Also Show...

Some other observations that emerge from the Top 100 survey (see pages 40-65 for charts):

* The number one granter of baccalaureates to African Americans was, for the second year in a row, Florida A&M University. However, FAMU posted a slight decrease in the number of baccalaureates granted (.03 percent) from 1995 to 1997. Although the decrease is almost negligible, it stands in contrast to the university's dramatic rise in each of the previous five years. Last year was the first in which Howard University was not ranked number one since Black Issues began publishing its Top 100 rankings in 1991.

* By and large, the four-year schools that graduate the most African American students in a given year are still the historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and the large public urban colleges. This year, for the first time, Chicago State University is the top non-HBCU conferring the most baccalaureates on African Americans. Last year the leading non-HBCU was City College of the City University of New York, which among non-HBCUs fell into the number two spot and ranked thirteenth overall this year.

* Several HBCUs posted losses in the numbers of baccalaureates conferred annually from 1995 to 1997, including Grambling State University (-4.6 percent), Hampton University (-2.6 percent), Tuskegee University (-6.1 percent), Xavier University (-5.1 percent), and the University of the District of Columbia (-1.5 percent).

* Other HBCUs posted dramatic annual increases over the same period of time, including North Carolina Central University (+12.2 percent), Texas Southern University (+13 percent), and Clark Atlanta University (+11.3 percent).

* For Latinos, the schools that confer the most degrees are still in California, Texas, and New York. However. New Jersey schools are showing a strong upward trend from the private Kean College, which increased the number of baccalaureate degrees conferred on Latinos by 20.9 percent from 1995 to 1997: to Jersey City State College, which increased by 14.2 percent over the same time; to Rutgers University-New Brunswick, which increased by 4.5 percent.

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Five-Year Trends in Total Undergraduate Degrees, by Race/Ethnicity and Degree Level

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