Age 25 is used rather than age 18 because there are few people aged 18 or over with advanced degrees. Many college graduates are already thinking about changing career paths, delaying graduation — … [5], Traditionally, girls have outperformed boys in reading and writing. Sixty-one percent of Black students who took the ACT in the 2015 high school graduating class met none of the four ACT college readiness benchmarks, nearly twice the 31% rate for all students. Overall, European Americans with an advanced degree had the highest average annual income with $74,122. [5], Data in the last twenty years shows the general trend of girls outperforming boys in academic achievement in terms of class grades across all subjects and college graduation rates, but boys score higher on standardized tests and are better represented in higher-paying and more prestigious STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and math). Today, 56 percent … In: Karabel, J., &, https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-salaries-college-degrees/, Racial achievement gap in the United States, List of U.S. States by Education attainment, "Educational Attainment in the United States: 2015", "US Census Bureau report on educational attainment in the United States, 2003", "Educational Attainment in the United States: 2018", "Historical summary of faculty, students, degrees, and finances in degree-granting institutions: Selected years, 1869–70 through 2015–16", "Percentage of high school dropouts among persons 16 through 24 years old (status dropout rate), by sex and race/ethnicity: Selected years, 1960 through 2016", "Degrees conferred by degree-granting institutions, by level of degree and sex of student: Selected years, 1869–70 through 2016–17", "Justice Department accuses Yale of discriminating against Asian American and White applicants", "African Immigrants are the Most Educated", "Migration Information Source - African Immigrants in the United States", "Affirmative Action Minorities - Affirmative Action College Admissions", "Sub-Saharan African immigrants arrive with the most education but struggle with underemployment", "Foreign-Born Blacks Hit Hardest Of All Immigrant Groups By Jobs Crisis", "Migration Information Source - Characteristics of the African Born in the United States", "Educational attainment and median household income 2018 Data Men", "Personal income and educational attainment, US Census Bureau Women", The most and least educated U.S. religious groups, "Middle class according to The Drum Major Institute for public policy", "Middle income can't buy Middle class lifestyle", http://www.aaup.org/article/who-are-part-time-faculty#.UsU90fQW0oo, Graduation Rate Hits High, But Some Groups Lag, Educational Attainment in the United States: 2003, The Big Payoff: Educational Attainment and Synthetic Estimates of Work-Life Earnings, Map: Graduation Rate by State, Student Group, Births of U.S. states and territories by race/ethnicity, Race and ethnicity in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Drafting and ratification of Constitution, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States&oldid=996122953, Wikipedia articles in need of updating from September 2020, All Wikipedia articles in need of updating, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Master's and/or doctorate and/or professional degree, Holly Yettick and Sterling C. Lloyd (2015), ", This page was last edited on 24 December 2020, at 17:36. Persons identifying as Hispanic or Latino, without regard to race, had the lowest educational attainment. The average gap increased to 21 points by 8th grade and widened to 24 points by senior year in high school. [27] This corresponding income is typically significantly higher than that of someone without this higher level of educational attainment in the United States. The Evidence Suggests Otherwise: The Truth About Boys and Girls. [9] A similar pattern is also seen in high school education, where, in 2016, 7.1% of males, but only 5.1% of females dropped out of high school. At 4.7 percent, unemployment is the lowest it’s been in years. All told, the percentage of 25-34 year olds with some kind of postsecondary degree rose half a percentage point from 38.8 percent to 39.3 percent. On the matter of the highest education level, we will research which the countries with the highest percentage of college graduates in 2018 are. The U.S., formerly the world leader in this category, this year fell to 12th place Fifty years ago, 58 percent of U.S. college students were men. Although this gap may be minimal in kindergarten, it grows as students continue their education. At this rate, Obama's goal will fall short. After the Great Recession, for example, the unemployment rate for college graduates as a whole peaked at around 5 percent in 2010, while Just barely. Over one in three adults (35 percent) had attained at least a bachelor's degree. The western United States had the highest percentage of those with some college or an associate degree and ranked second for college graduates. This year, for the first time, the share of college-educated women in the U.S. workforce passed the share of college-educated men, according to the Pew Research Center. These differences in child-rearing practices lead to children of lower- and working-class families to lack the necessary life skills that the children of the middle class possess, further isolating them from educational opportunities. Educational attainment among the population aged 25 and above varied rather slightly with geography region. Education is not only the main requirement for becoming a member of the professional middle class, it is also key to a comfortable lifestyle and economic security. The U.S. Department of Education notes All data is in 2003 dollars and only applies to householders whose householder is aged twenty-five or older. Hispanics and Latinos also trailed far behind in terms of graduating from high school; it was the only major group for which high school graduates constituted less than 80% of the population. Persons identifying as Hispanicor Latino, without regard to race, had the lowest educ… The highest and lowest points of the median household income are presented in bold face.[24][25]. [27][29] Overall, educational attainment is the main entrance barrier into more privileged parts of the middle class as it is not only of high value but is also the requirement for becoming a professional and earning the corresponding income. The wages of these recent college graduates will likely remain depressed for the next 10 to 15 years because they graduated into a weak economy, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. For 2019 high school graduates, the college enrollment rate was 69.8 percent for young women and 62.0 percent for young men. Collins maintains that public schools are socializing institutions that teach and reward middle-class values of competition and achievement. At selective universities, the on-time graduation rate is 36%. recent college graduates, so they are not included in our analysis. This includes both theoretical programmes leading to advanced research or high skill professions such as medicine and more vocational programmes leading to the labour market. [13], While the educational attainment of all races increased during the 1990s, with the gap between African Americans and non-Hispanic whites decreasing, differences between the races remain, especially among those with a bachelor's degree or higher. SOURCE: US Census Bureau, 2003 Yellow indicates the year with the lowest median income while green indicates the year with the highest reported median income. Asians have fared better than any other groups in obtaining a college education. Nowadays, it is around 25%, and it is expected to keep dropping. 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