Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

[deleted] t1_ir6tmiz wrote

Reply to comment by Bewaretheicespiders in [OC] Ethnic Differences in Representation for Bachelor/Master Degree Holders in the US (2019) by icywatermelons

This doesn't answer his question. There should be no difference between the two if every external factors were similar.

Why are they not making the same choices once they make it to college?

13

GottaVentAlt t1_ir775co wrote

Could be a lot of things happening. It could be something like, fewer Black people are accepted to university in the first place, which means that the work ethic and skill level or aspirations of many of those few who are accepted are equivalent to the top 25% (arbitrary number) of white candidates, for whom college is a given, so they are more likely to continue as a group.

It could be cultural. Both the feeling that you have to be a "good" representative of your race, and the fact that most of your peers of the same race feel the same way will push you to achieve more/avoid "failure". It could also be the reasons that they are choosing university in the first place. Social work, Healthcare, education, and so on are fields where getting a masters is often necessary. I don't know if there is specific pressure from parents of high performing Black students to go towards specific fields or not the way there is for Asian students to go into engineering or medicine.

It could also be that recently graduated Black students find themselves unable to find the same caliber of job opportunities as their white peers so have to continue education to find good jobs in their field.

Just spitballing.

15

vtTownie t1_ir9pvni wrote

Generally not those accepted, but those applying to begin with.

2

[deleted] t1_ira2zjc wrote

>Could be a lot of things happening. It could be something like, fewer Black people are accepted to university in the first place, which means that the work ethic and skill level or aspirations of many of those few who are accepted are equivalent to the top 25% (arbitrary number) of white candidates, for whom college is a given, so they are more likely to continue as a group.

If that was a leading factor, we would see a similar trend for hispanics, but we observe the opposite.

>It could be cultural. Both the feeling that you have to be a "good" representative of your race, and the fact that most of your peers of the same race feel the same way will push you to achieve more/avoid "failure". It could also be the reasons that they are choosing university in the first place. Social work, Healthcare, education, and so on are fields where getting a masters is often necessary. I don't know if there is specific pressure from parents of high performing Black students to go towards specific fields or not the way there is for Asian students to go into engineering or medicine.

That's an interesting hypothesis. It would be interesting to see a comparison of the fields of study for different racial ethnicity to verify this hypothesis. If blacks do indeed disproportionately choose fields of study that require a master's degree it could support your hypothesis.

>It could also be that recently graduated Black students find themselves unable to find the same caliber of job opportunities as their white peers so have to continue education to find good jobs in their field.

Unlikely considering the data for other ethnicities and for African born black immigrants.

1

Bewaretheicespiders t1_ir6uljf wrote

There is no reason to expect any two non-uniform-random sampling of such a distribution to have the same characteristics.

2

CustomerSuspicious25 t1_ir9lzr0 wrote

Maybe more Black people need or feel like they need that additional education and that piece of paper to advance their career while less White people do?

0

[deleted] t1_ira1t95 wrote

While this is only speculation, why would that be? For other minorities we observe the opposite trend.

1