New research from The City College of New York’s Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership suggests that racial/ethnic minority (REM) students thrive in environments with no-racial/ethnic majority, producing higher graduation rates, even through adverse factors such as low household income and low parental education.
Generally, research has found that REM students graduate from colleges and universities at lower rates than White students. National graduation rates of Black (27.62 percent) and Latinx (19.81 percent) students remain considerably lower than White (43.87 percent) and Asian (59.35 percent) students. This comes despite increased enrollment by REM students in the past 50 years.
The study included all City College undergraduate students (12,960) enrolled in the fall semester of 2009, as well as 514 students in an introductory psychology class in 2009 who completed a 21-item survey of sociodemographic characteristics.
Of the full cohort, 74.71 percent graduated by the end of 2017, with 63.42 percent graduating from City College and another 11.29 percent graduating from a college or university they transferred to. Asian students (79%) graduated at a slightly higher rate, followed closely by White (74%), Latinx (73%), and Black (73%) students. Among students who began City College as freshmen in 2009 (4,226), 60.67 percent graduated from either City College or the college where they transferred. The graduation rates of Black (67%) and Latinx (68%) freshmen were substantially higher than the national averages. Survey data revealed that lower perceived stress as freshmen and full-time registration status best predicted the students’ graduation 8 years later.
“We found that Black and Latinx City College students graduate at a much higher rate than national averages, with little disparity among our racial/ethnic groups, said Robert D. Melara, one of the authors of the study and a professor in the Colin Powell School’s Department of Psychology. “Interestingly, traditional predictors, such as household income, gender, and parental education, have no bearing on success at City College. What matters are the students’ self-reported degree of psychological stress and their academic momentum,”
The study, “College Completion in a No-Racial/Ethnic Majority Campus” is now published in the Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, and was co-authored by Namhee Stokvis, Rutgers University, Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology; and Prabal K. De, of the Colin Powell School’s Department of Economics, and the Graduate Center, CUNY.
“The big message from our findings is racial/ethnic minority students, whether at City College or elsewhere, thrive academically in educational settings where no single racial majority exists,” added Melara.
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Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Emsi puts at $1.9 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers and society. At City College, more than 16,000 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity and scholarship. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.
Max Dorfman/Jay Mwamba
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