Racial Graduation Gap in Maryland Widens
The public university system in Maryland reported a 25 percentage point graduation gap between black students and the rest of the student body, the Baltimore Sun reports. Forty percent of its black students earn a degree within six years, compared with 65 percent overall. Three years ago, the gap was 15 percentage points.
Enrollment of black students is up by thousands, and some "traditionally white" institutions, like Towson University and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County , have nearly eliminated the graduation gap. However, graduation rates at historically black public colleges have fallen.
Coppin State University in Baltimore has the lowest rate. Only 17 percent of freshmen in 2002 graduated by last year—Coppin's lowest figure since the system began collecting data in 1989. A decade ago, Coppin's graduation rate was 26 percent.
About half of Coppin freshmen take remedial math. Also, about 50 percent fail freshman English the first time they take it, meaning they must repeat it, some of them multiple times, before they can move on.
Tags: Maryland | colleges | race | University of Maryland
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Reader Comments
NAACP
I think Al Sharpton should look in to these "allegations". These types of numbers do nothing but serve the "man". All students should get equal grades because we're all created equal. Why does somebody who works and studies hard have to get better grades than the somebody who's a player. That is unfair and downright racist. The peeps ain't graduating cause they have thug life don't you know. It be super hard to keep the payments on Escalade, show up at school, be a big baller, and scam honeys. The school of hard knocks is what counts, not some Math that nobody be understanding or caring about anyway. And why do I gotta be like speaking English proper and stuff huh? I roll how I roll cuz it's real, you haters just jealous.
Reason for the gap
This article seems to strategically leave out the white to overall percentage gap, because I guarantee that is a larger gap as well. My school, Towson University, feels like it is at least 1/4 foreign students and its growing every day. Maybe I'm wrong, but it feels that way. I would also assume it wasn't this way three years ago, or at least not as many foreign students. What I'm getting at here is that foreign students (which most are not black or white) always get better grades; they came all the way over here, so they have to or they are letting a lot of people down. So that is why I would think that gap has increased of black to overall graduation ratio: because there are more foreign students getting better grades than the rest of us which makes that gap increase.
Also, whoever designs this website: why do you have Yahoo! Buzz on the tools menu at the bottom of the post instead of Digg? No one uses Yahoo! Buzz.
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