Causes of Disproportionate Poverty among Ethnic Minorities: Access to Education

Education

Education—assumed to be the “great equalizer”—is often another factor that restricts the movement of minority groups. As a result of neighborhood segregation, lower income students—especially students of color—are zoned and confined to failing or inferior schools.[1] This leaves them less academically prepared to both enter and complete college. Even when a young African American student is academically prepared to succeed, the cost of higher education is often far out of reach. The total costs of public universities have risen 60% in the last twenty years. Low income and minority students who do attend college are often forced to take jobs rather than attend full time or graduate deep in debt. While debt is a problem that students of all ethnicities may have to face, African American students are more susceptible to it—80% of African American students graduated with debt as opposed to 64% of Caucasian students.2

There is a commonly held misconception that minority students receive more than the deserved amount of aid. In fact, students of color are less likely to receive both private scholarships and merit based institutional grants than Caucasian students. Caucasian students receive more than 75% of institutional grants, although they comprise less than 66% of the student population. Further, Caucasian students receive 65% of private scholarship funding, compared to 12% for African American students, 8% for Hispanic students, and 6% for Asian students.³