U.S. College Graduate Advances Reflect Half-Century Trend

Fox News recently published an article about the “plummeting” number of undergraduates who earned an education degree between 1971, when 176,000 ranked as the “number one major in America,” and 89,000 in 2021.

The article usefully hyperlinks to the latest tables from National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), which contain a cornucopia of fascinating statistics about the nation’s recent — and older — college graduates and enrollees.

Graduates have increased “by nearly 150%” between 1971 and 2021, from 840,000 to 2,066,000, while the U.S. population only grew by 64%, from 203 million to 332 million.

There has also been fantastic growth in STEM degrees, including “Computers and Information Sciences,” from 2,400 to 105,000; “Biological and Biomedical Sciences,” 36,000 to 131,000; and "Engineering,” 45,000 to 126,000.

Furthermore, extraordinary progress has been made by minority Americans in earning a bachelor’s degree between 1977 and 2021. Hispanic Americans skyrocketed from 19,000 to 325,000.

Asian Americans exploded from 14,000 to 170,000.

Black Americans soared from 59,000 to 207,000.

White Americans increased by a much smaller percentage, from 808,000 to 1,172,000.

Therefore, during these 44 years, Hispanic, Black, and Asian graduates progressed from a very meager 92,000 of 920,000, or 10%, to a very robust 702,000 of 2,066,000, or 34%.

Moreover, 496,000 graduates, or 54%, were men in 1977, and 424,000, or 46%, were women.

But two years ago, 1,206,000 graduates, or 58%, were women, and 861,000, or 42%, were men.

The NCES also reports the inspiring percentages of recent high-school graduates who were enrolled in a four-year college in 2020-21. Asian Americans are at a spectacular 76%; Black and white Americans, 43% each; and Hispanic Americans, 40%.

As the undergraduate Class of 2027 are about to embark on their immensely enriching college journeys, the phenomenal reality is that every student can major in any academic discipline, regardless of race, gender, religion, national origin, or other irrelevant personal trait.

This was not the case in September 1967, when I began at the venerable City College of New York, which was integrated, coeducational and free. But many other prestigious private undergraduate colleges, including Princeton, Georgetown, Yale and California Institute of Technology, did not then admit female students.

These colleges also severely restricted Black male students.

But, remarkably, after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, these heinous, unconstitutional barriers, preventing women, Blacks and other minorities from attending many private and public colleges, were steadily demolished.

Another key milestone is the passage by Congress, and signed by President Richard Nixon, of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits “any education program or activity” receiving federal financing of discriminating on the basis of sex.

Fittingly, one month ago, six U.S. Supreme Court justices delivered the exclamation points, to six decades of extraordinary progress in providing discrimination-free college educations for all Americans.

In two linked landmark decisions, involving defendants Harvard and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the justices wisely ended 45 years of admissions favoritism, for Black and Hispanic students. The successful plaintiffs were superbly qualified, yet rejected, Asian American undergraduate applicants.