Black women are graduating with Master degrees at a higher rate than Black men. When entering a four-year institution, the number of Black men and women gradually shift as graduation day grows closer. More women are obtaining Masters and Doctoral degrees more often than men and the leading cause is due to women not receiving equal pay as men with bachelor degrees.
The National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) gathered data from 1990 to 2015 that shows African American women at HBCUs awarded significantly higher than African American men, with “a ratio of approximately 5 to 2.” The Afro states some reasons for this significant high number of women enrolled and graduating from high institutions. Paris Dennard, from the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, suggests that the number of African American women enrolled at “4-year institutions nationwide” has increased over the years. We can see in the 2015 academic year, there were over 140,000 Black women enrolled at HBCUs compared to the 86,000 Black males reported from NCES.
Another reason for the spark in the number of Black women’s admission described by Kenneth K. Wong, a professor at Brown University, “is there are more opportunities outside of college for Black men and men in general.” July 31st is marked as Black Women’s Equal Pay Day reported by Bustle, which displays how “Black women had to work every day of 2016 and all the way until this day in 2017 just to catch up with what white men earned in 2016 alone.” This is where the awareness of the Women Equal Pay Day helps start conservation in the workplace concerning equal pay. One study from the LeanIn.Org shows that “for every $1 man are paid in the United States, women as a whole are paid just 80 cents. For Black women, it’s even worse – just 63 cents.”
Yesterday was acknowledged as “Equal Pay Day” for Black women in this country, a day that marks the number of days into the next year that Black women on average would need to work to earn the same amount their white male counterparts made in the year prior.
It’s great that Black women are taking over in education and pursing post-secondary opportunities. With the increase in women pursing Master ’s degrees, we have to continue to support our women and motivate our African American males to go back to college for secondary opportunities.
Originally blogged on Campus Lately
I AM AP ROSE 