Dreams Deferred: Black Student Career Goals and Fields of Study in Graduate/Professional Schools

Abstract

INSTITUTIONAL RACISM in the form of legal barriers and established admissions practices has historically restricted the access of black students to major advanced degree training programs in this country. By 1960, a series of successful court challenges had resulted in decisions striking down the legality of exclusionary practices and procedures at the nation's universities.' Still, it took concerted pressure from black student activists during the decade of the 60s to affect noticeable changes in advanced degree program enrollments. From 1965 to 1975 there was a rapid increase in college enrollments among black students. Thus, by 1976 African Americans comprised 6 percent of all graduate students and nearly 5 percent of all first year professional students.2 By 1979 black undergraduates had grown to 11 percent of the national total, from 7 percent in 1968.3 Black Americans seemed to be making rapid progress toward eliminating racial inequities in higher education. Examination of more recent data proves this period of rapid progress for African Americans in higher education to have been temporary. The majority of black college students currently attend two-year community colleges (54 percent), with little chance of ever going on to earn bachelor's degrees.4 Where black students are enrolled in four-year institutions, their rates of discontinuance are as much as three to seven times higher than those for white students.5 Recent cutbacks in federal spending for educational programs coupled with the generally worsening economic situation have served to further deplete the ranks of black college students. Whereas in 1960 the difference in percentage black and percentage white with four or more years of college was five points (3.1 vs. 8.1 percent), by 1980 that difference had grown to ten points.6 Rather than improving, the situation of blacks in higher education seems to be worsening. This is particularly true for graduate and professional school. Black enrollment in programs of advanced study beyond the bachelor's degree has been on the decline since