How walking across the stage can fulfill the American Dream and other myths surrounding higher education
Arielle Dreher | Editor-In-Chief
College: a quintessential part of the American Dream leading to a job that may lead to wealth and power later in life. This used to be the case. College used to be for the overtly rich and pow- erful up until the 19th and 20th century when things began to change. Events like the women’s suffrage and the Civil Rights movement pushed racial minori- ties and women into colleges, and things began to change. Now in the 21st century, the demographics of college and higher education are drastically different.
It turns out that people have more access to higher education than ever before.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on a study done by The National Center for Education Statistics that researched undergraduate postsecondary institution for the 2012 school year. Their research concluded a slight decrease in attendance compared to the 2011 numbers. They found that the total number of undergraduates in 2012 was 18.2 million. Within those numbers, there were five women for every four men. According to the center’s studies, this number has not moved much in the past decade. Race was also factored into the center’ s study . They found that at four-year public colleges, Asian women had the highest graduation rate (70 percent), while African-American males had the lowest rate (32 percent). Disturbingly, despite the growth, two- thirds of students did not graduate from the community college that they started at within three years—although this might be in part due to early transfers to four-year colleges, which is common for cost-financial reasons.
Josh Freedman, a policy analyst for the New America Foundation and a contributing writer at Forbes magazine, studies, researches and writes about American education systems. Freed- man wrote recent blog posts for Forbes online about the “Typical College Student.”
According to Freedman, the typical college student demographics are changing.
“The biggest share of students seeking higher education are ‘nontraditional’ students,” Freedman said. “…We think of college as the Ivy leagues or big state schools, but most of them [colleges attended] are regional public universities and community colleges.”
In the 20th century, higher education has advanced due to the GI Bill and the Higher Education Act of 1965 which made college accessible to more people.
“It’s [higher education] no longer just reserved for the wealthiest, whitest most prestigious people…a lot more people have the opportunity to attend college in the form of grants, loans and work study programs,” Freedman said.
However, even when higher educa- tion is made more accessible, the ques- tion then becomes, what is the quality of that college education? According to Freedman, time and money are still essential in getting a good education today.
“How are you able to enact a broader operation to make sure we can give an education to people who haven’t had it in the past?” Freedman asked.
With the gaps in the current structures, the answer to this question is much more complex at its roots.
The National Science Foundation also conducted research on higher education in the past years. They cited the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to say that higher education en- rollment will continue to increase about 16 percent between 2008 and 2019. They projected the increased enrollment of specific racial and ethnic groups, particularly Hispanic and African-American groups (which are predicted to have enrollment numbers increase by 15 percent each). Despite the progress and access to education that is expected in the coming years, there is still concern for the widening gaps formed by such growth.
Nothing spells out the gaps more clearly than the Department of Education’s reports on higher education that came out in 2012.* In 2012, 19,930,000 students were enrolled in some form of college or university, including graduate school and Ph.D programs. Of those students, the breakdown in gender was 57 percent female and 43 percent male students. The demographics of those males in higher education displays the racial inequality still present in higher education. 6,392,000 of the 8,602,000 males enrolled were white. 1,152,000 African-American males and 700,000 Asian males were enrolled. In other words, 74% of males in undergraduate and postgraduate programs are white.
Despite the apparent “progress” made, Freedman acknowledged that education is not nearly as diverse as we want it to be. Elite universities are still heavily dominated by people from wealthier families, and Pell grants can only help certain individuals who come from very low-income families (who have $30-60,000 annual incomes). The class divisions are not distinct from the racial statistics of postsecondary education, and solutions to solving the racial gap in colleges is going to have to involve class division issues.
Another gap of interest is the over- whelming enrollment of females com- pared to their employment status after graduation. Only 1 million males were recorded to be in graduate programs in 2012, while there were 1,432,000 women in graduate programs. Assuming higher education, particularly graduate school work, leads to a full-time job and career, the employment statistics should reveal more women in full-time employment. However the numbers tell a different story. 66,247,000 males were employed full-time in 2012. Only 49,487,000 wom- en were. In other words, 57 percent of the full-time employment world is male-dominated—even though females held that 57 percent figure in higher education.
Where is there a disconnect? Why in the 21st century is the gender gap still blatantly obvious?
The gender gap in regards to career aspiration was a major aspect of research conducted by psychology professors, Dr. Annie Tsai and Dr. Chong Ho Yu, and students, Katie Vasseur and Sam Vaudrey. Their study looked at gender role ideology and religiosity as it affected ca- reer aspiration on college students in both public and private universities. Using a quantitative and data analysis approach, 461 students were surveyed, and the results were staggering. Not only was gender a large factor in career aspiration but religious affiliation was as well.
The study concludes: “Results show that gender role ideology is a significant predictor of career aspiration, but only for women. The more egalitarian a woman is in her ideology, the more likely she is to have high career aspiration. It is interest- ing that men’s career aspiration was not predicted by their gender role ideology.”
This might explain the 57 percent discrepancy. Women are more likely to be influenced by the gender ideology sewn into society, or even play to a religious ste- reotype of their gender. Senior psychology majors Vasseur and Vaudrey have presented the findings at a few conferences this year . Vasseur was disheartened by the results of the study.
“It is not encouraging to see that women like myself at this institution are not seeking ambitious career goals with their degrees, ” V asseur said. “It is indicative of much deeper societal issues, from my perspective.”
It seems that the Christian universities should be at the forefront of a movement to create equality in higher education, but unfortunately, the numbers are not in our favor.
“I wish that it was not assumed in our social spheres that women would have to choose between work or family. I wish that Christian circles would speed up and catch up to the progression of society when it comes to the topic of women in the workplace,” Vasseur said.
Race, gender and class are still play- ing a major role in how higher education functions. Sure we’ve made “progress,” but is that all we can hope for? It’s time for the Christian universities to be at the forefront of a change—not progress. Let’s now stop talking about the numbers, and start talking about change. It turns out that “the ratio” and APU’s attempts at diversity are actually reflective of a greater reality in higher educa- tion: it’s time for tangible change.