Selective-college racial gaps persist and widen at higher incomes

Evidence

White students are five times more likely to go to a selective university than black students. The pattern holds even when controlling for income; in fact, the gap grows as income grows. Higher-income white Americans are four times more likely to attend selective schools than higher-income black Americans, when at the lowest income levels whites are two to three times as likely to attend selective schools as blacks. At every income level a statistically significant higher percentage of white students attend selective universities than blacks. According to a New York Times analysis, even as colleges have begun admitting more nonwhite applicants overall, the percentage of black students at the nation’s top colleges is roughly the same today as it was thirty-five years ago. — Dorothy A. Brown, The Whiteness of Wealth, 269

Categorization

• CANDY: ‘Top-college black enrollment static for thirty-five years despite more nonwhite applicants overall’ is a compact, tweetable surprise.