Data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center Signature Report No. 16, Completing College: A National View of Student Completion Rates—Fall 2012 Cohort, underscores the “racial transfer gap” referred to by Debra Bragg in her interview. The second table below is interesting from a transfer perspective because it illustrates that not only do black and Hispanic men and women have lower degree completion rates, they also have lower transfer rates and higher “not enrolled” rates than white men and women, quantifying the racial transfer gap.
Figure 6. Six-Year Outcomes by Race and Ethnicity (N=1,661,399)*
*See Appendix C, Table 17b for completion outcomes of other race and ethnicity categories (e.g., non-resident alien, American Indian/Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander).
Figure 6. Asian students showed the highest completion rate at 70.3 percent, followed by white students at 67.1 percent. Black and Hispanic students had much lower completion rates (41.0 and 49.6 percent, respectively).
Figure 8. Six-Year Outcomes by Race and Ethnicity and Gender (N=1,599,059)*
Figure 8. Women had higher completion rates than men, regardless of race and ethnicity. Out of all the race and ethnicity groups, black men had the lowest completion rate of 36.1 percent and the highest stop-out rate, with almost half of them stopping out by the end of the study period.
Source: Shapiro, D., Dundar, A., Huie, F., Wakhungu, P.K., Bhimdiwala, A. & Wilson, S. E. (2018, December). Completing College: A National View of Student Completion Rates – Fall 2012 Cohort (Signature Report No. 16). Herndon, VA: National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.