The college-going gap between Black and white Americans was always bad. It’s getting worse.

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As states push back against diversity programs at public universities, and the Supreme Court considers whether to eliminate affirmative action in admissions, a central question remains: whether the playing field has finally been leveled, especially between white and Black Americans who aspire to college educations and the higher quality of life they bring.

The answer? Not only has this divide failed to narrow − it’s getting worse.

“In a way, we’re in the worst of all possible worlds for civil rights, because people think a lot of problems have been solved,” said Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project at the University of California, Los Angeles.

In fact, Orfield said, “we’re not making progress. The gaps are huge, and there’s no prospect of them closing in the foreseeable future. We’re going backwards.”

Since 2010, the number of Black students attending college and university has been dropping steadily. The number of Black students going to college is down by 22% between 2010 and 2020, or by more than 650,000 students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.  Since 2020 it has fallen by another 7%, recent figures from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center show.

Even though the number of white students has also declined since 2010, the difference between the proportions of white students and Black students graduating with degrees has gotten bigger, data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center show.

Thirty-four percent of Black adults have associate degrees or higher, compared with 50% of white adults, according to the Lumina Foundation. 

There’s a facade that’s trying to be presented that everything is OK. But we never were okay, even before the pandemic,” said Wisdom Cole, national director of the NAACP youth and college division.

“The facts of the matter is, we’re not making progress. We’re going backwards. The gaps are huge, and there’s no prospect of them closing in the foreseeable future,” said UCLA’s Orfield.

The average Black household earns about half as much as the average white household, and white families have eight times the median wealth of Black families − $188,200, compared with $24,100 − a gap that also has been getting wider, the Federal Reserve reports.

Blacks earn less
University degree or not, “you’re facing discrimination in the workplace when it comes to hiring and when it comes to salaries,” Cole said.

Black college and university graduates earn an average of 15% less than their white classmates and are more likely to be underemployed, the NAACP finds. 

Because of the lower pay, almost 40% of Black college grads default on their college loans within 12 years, compared with 12% of white graduates, The Institute for College Access and Success says. Which is why efforts to block student loan relief more likely hurt Black and Hispanic families the most.

Overall, the US Department of Education suggests that different factors, such as changes in the labor market and the economy, may have contributed to the decline in the number of Black students attending college.