Affirmative Action Works - What the Research Shows

Affirmative Action Works

What the Research Shows

Higher Education Trends Reveal Progress--But the Need Remains

College Participation
College Enrollment
College Completion Rates
Degrees Conferred
Faculty Employment

What Diversity and Affirmative Action Research Shows

Benefits to Students
Benefits to Society and to the Economy

References

Higher Education Trends Reveal Progress—But the Need Remains

Efforts to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in higher education and to diversify college and university student bodies and faculties have been under way for more than 25 years. An analysis of enrollment, degree awards, and employment trends during this period reveals two things: first, much has been achieved, and second, persons of color are far from reaching parity in higher education.

During the past two decades, white women and persons of color have experienced enrollment gains, increased undergraduate and graduate degree attainment, and made gains in faculty and administrative employment. However, until recently, African American and American Indian progress has been sporadic. Only during the past ten years has steady progress been made among all four ethnic minority groups. Yet there is evidence that these gains are evaporating in states where affirmative action has been rolled back.

The following data are drawn from ACE's 1997-98 Status Report on Minorities in Higher Education.

College Participation

College participation rates among all high school graduates ages 18 to 24 climbed to an all-time high of 43.5 percent in 1996.
Overall the college-going rates for men and women ages 18 to 24 in 1996 were nearly the same—43 percent for men and 44 percent for women. However, these rates differ by race and ethnicity, with African-American and Hispanic women being more likely to enroll in college than their male counterparts. Comparable data for American Indians and Asian Americans are not available.
An upward swing occurred in college participation for African Americans and Hispanics during the late 1980s and mid-1990s. Nonetheless, these groups continue to be less likely to attend college than whites. In 1996, 44 percent of white high school graduates ages 18 to 24 were enrolled in college, compared with 35.9 percent of blacks and 35 percent of Hispanics.

College Enrollment

Despite continued gaps in the college-going rates of students of color and white students, in 1996 and prior to the impact of affirmative action rollbacks in several states, the actual number of African-American, Hispanic, Asian-American, and American Indian students enrolled in college increased by 2.7 percent to an all-time high of nearly 3.6 million.
While the percentage of students of color attending institutions of higher education has increased, the gains differed by race and ethnicity. Between 1991 and 1996, Hispanic students led the enrollment increases, posting a 3.3 percent gain. Other ethnic minority students also experienced increases: Asian Americans at 29.3 percent, American Indians at 17.3 percent, and African Americans at 12.3 percent during the same time period.
The largest enrollment gain for students of color in 1996 was made at the graduate level with a 5.7 percent increase. Additionally, students of color at the professional and undergraduate levels increased by 2.9 and 3.0 percent, respectively.

College Completion Rates
American Indian, African-American, and Hispanic students have documented important gains in completing college during the late 1980s and mid-1990s. However, they continue to be less likely to complete college than Asian-American and white students. When compared with prior years, the most recent six-year college completion data (i.e., data on the rate of completion six years after first enrolling in college) show a slight increase in the completion rates among these groups. This good news may reflect the increased emphasis that some institutions are placing on student retention.

NCAA college completion data from Division I institutions show that African Americans, Asian Americans, American Indians, and Hispanics achieved progress in completing college from 1990 to 1995. However, 1995-96 data show a slight dip in the college completion rates of African Americans, which is down by 2 percent, and by 1 percent for Hispanic and Asian Americans, while American Indians remained unchanged.
Asian Americans were the only minority ethnic group that had a higher college graduation rate than white students. African Americans, American Indians, and Hispanics trailed these two groups significantly. In 1996, the gap in graduation rates between American Indians and whites was 22 percentage points. The gaps between whites and African Americans and Hispanics were 21 and 14 percentage points, respectively.

Degrees Conferred
Despite the fact that African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians completed college at substantially lower rates than whites and Asian Americans, overall, during the late 1980s and mid-1990s, students of color progressed in the actual number of undergraduate and graduate degrees they received. This is particularly significant for African Americans, who had lost ground in the number of degrees awarded during the early to mid-1980s.

Between 1990 and 1995, bachelor degree awards were up 51.6 percent for minority students. Bachelor degree awards to African Americans were up 42.8 percent, 65 percent for Hispanics, nearly 50.4 percent for American Indians, and 54.1 percent for Asian Americans.
Nonetheless, in 1995 only 5.2 percent of all bachelor degrees were awarded to Asian Americans, 4.7 percent to Hispanics, and approximately 0.6 percent to American Indians, while 7.5 percent were awarded to African Americans.
In 1996, 14 percent of all doctorates awarded to U.S. citizens went to minorities compared with 9 percent in 1985. Although this growth marks clear progress, persons of color remain underrepresented at the doctoral level.

Faculty Employment

The number of full-time faculty members of color increased by 47.7 percent from 1985 to 1995, compared with a gain of 9.9 percent among whites. However, the growth varied considerably among different ethnic minority groups, and faculty of color represented only 12.9 percent of all full-time faculty in 1995.
In 1995, women held 43.4 percent of all full-time faculty positions compared with 27.6 percent in 1985. But they are much less likely to hold full professor positions than are their male counterparts.
Despite the continued underrepresentation of minorities in many sectors, affirmative action has had dramatic and measurable results in moving minorities and women into meaningful employment and participation in higher education as students, faculty, and administrators. Individual affirmative action and diversity programs have been implemented at myriad campuses and have proven to be successful.

What Diversity and Affirmative Action Research Shows

Benefits to Students
How do students benefit from a strong institutional emphasis on diversity and multiculturalism? This question was examined by noted educational authority Alexander Astin in a national four-year longitudinal study of student outcomes that surveyed 25,000 undergraduates at 217 four-year colleges and universities. The findings of this study empirically support the premise that students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds benefit from institutional diversity efforts and from multicultural curricula and/or experiences (Astin 1993a). Based on this study, Astin concludes that "emphasizing diversity either as a matter of institutional policy or in faculty research and teaching, as well as providing students with curricular and extra-curricular opportunities to confront racial and multicultural issues, are all associated with widespread beneficial effects on a student's cognitive and affective development" (Astin 1993b).

The University of Michigan released a publication titled The Compelling Need for Diversity in Higher Education, containing expert reports that were submitted as evidence in two pending lawsuits against the university: Gratz, et al. v. Bollinger, et al. and Grutter, et al. v. Bollinger, et al. One of these reports, by Patricia Gurin, professor of psychology and women's studies at the University of Michigan, presents comprehensive and compelling research that shows that "a racially and ethnically diverse university student body has far-ranging and significant benefits for all students, non-minorities and minorities alike." Based on findings from three parallel empirical analyses of university students, as well as from existing social science theory and research, Gurin concludes that "students learn better in a diverse educational environment, and they are better prepared to become active participants in our pluralistic, democratic society once they leave such a setting." The report can be found on the University of Michigan web site at: http://www.umich.edu/.

Diversity Works: The Emerging Picture of How Students Benefit, by Daryl G. Smith, et. al., and published by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in 1997, provides the most current review of research reports that describe our understanding of the importance and value of student diversity. "While many studies reviewed for this report evaluate the practices employed by individual institutions and their programs, others use national databases and multi-institutional studies to provide an empirical foundation for the development of individual initiatives" (AAC&U's Diversity web site). Some of the conclusions of this meta-analysis of diversity research include the following:

Diversity initiatives positively affect both minority and majority students on campus. Significantly, diversity initiatives have an impact not only on student attitudes and feelings toward intergroup relations on campus, but also on institutional satisfaction, involvement, and academic growth.
Growing evidence shows that involvement in specialized student groups, such as ethnic residential theme houses, support centers, and academic departments, benefits students of color and others. Indeed, these activities appear to contribute to increased satisfaction and retention, despite prodigious commentary of their negative effect on the development of community on campus.
Contrary to widespread reports of self-segregation among students of color on campuses, the research finds this pattern more typical of white students. Students of color interact more with dominant students than the reverse.
The evidence continues to grow that serious engagement of issues of diversity in the curriculum and the classroom has a positive impact on attitudes toward racial issues, on opportunities to interact in deeper ways with those who are different, on cognitive development, and on overall satisfaction and involvement with the institution. These benefits are particularly powerful for white students who have had less opportunity for such engagement.
While the reports of successful diversity initiatives are encouraging, more cross-institutional studies are needed. Moreover, the deeper studies that are emerging from individual campuses will continue to expand what we know about effective strategies, about the differential impact of certain strategies for different student groups, and about the apparent relationship between addressing the needs of underrepresented students through particular programs and initiatives, while at the same time addressing institutional issues through broad-based strategies (Diversity Works, Executive Summary, pp. v-vii).

An earlier report, also produced by AAC&U, The Impact of Diversity on Students: A Preliminary Review of the Research Literature, by Morgan Appel, David Cartwright, Daryl G. Smith, and Lisa E. Wolf, published in June 1996, is also an excellent reference. This publication provides an overview of research on the impact of institutional diversity policies and practices on student learning and campus life. The report offers an extensive annotated bibliography on the value of diversity on student outcomes in higher education. For more information about these reports contact AAC&U, http://www.aacu-edu.org/.

The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions is a longitudinal study by William Bowen and Derek Bok, in which they studied the 1976 and 1989 cohorts of students at selective colleges and universities. Bowen and Bok found that most African Americans who were admitted to these institutions under affirmative action policies succeeded in college, established successful careers, and assumed major leadership roles in their communities. Survey data further revealed:

a strong and growing belief among graduates in the value of enrolling a diverse student body;
79 percent of white graduates believe that race-sensitive admissions policies at their alma mater should either be maintained or strengthened;
similar levels of support for diversity between white matriculants who had been turned down by their first-choice school (and who might therefore be expected to resent race-sensitive admissions policies) and those who had been admitted;
a significant degree of social interaction between the races during college; and
the belief among graduates that college had contributed much to their ability to work well and get along with members of other races.

Benefits to Society and to the Economy

In addition to demonstrating student benefits of diversity, Bowen and Bok's The Shape of the River also establishes societal benefits of admitting diverse students to college.

56 percent of blacks who graduated from the institutions studied went on to earn advanced degrees, including law, medicine, and business. This benefits society overall, as well as the emerging black and Latino middle class.
Black men and women graduates of selective colleges are more active than white graduates in political and civic activities, including community service work.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in October 1997 found that students admitted to the University of California, Davis, Medical School under affirmative action policies between 1968 and 1987 have fared just as well as other graduates despite entering the program with lower grades and test scores. Researchers concluded: "An admissions process that allows for ethnicity and other special characteristics to be used heavily in admission decisions yields powerful effects on the diversity of the student population and shows no evidence of diluting the quality of the graduates."

Robert C. Davidson, one of the study's authors, asserted that the findings prove that UC's former affirmative action policies worked, and that "professional schools need to be given this flexibility to select the best candidates to produce not only a stellar class, but a diverse class, because that is important to the future of health professions in California" (The Sacramento Bee, October 8, 1997).

Data from the Association of American Medical Colleges' 1996 Graduating Student Questionnaire point to the societal benefits of training underrepresented minority students to become doctors.

Underrepresented students were four times more likely than other graduates to indicate that they intended to practice medicine in "socioeconomically deprived" areas.
More than half of the underrepresented minority graduates who planned a career in a generalist specialty indicated a willingness to practice in underserved areas.
In addition, a substantial proportion of underrepresented minority graduates who planned a career in a non-generalist field also planned to work in underserved areas.

An obvious strategy to improve health care service to minorities, therefore, is increased recruitment, admission, and graduation of underrepresented minorities to medical school.

At ACE's Symposium and Working Research Meeting on Diversity and Affirmative Action in January 1999, Anthony P. Carnevale, vice president for public leadership at the Educational Testing Service, presented a paper that made a strong case for diversity as one of the engines driving the U.S. economy. Carnevale highlighted research that shows: "Diverse work groups and customers are not only inevitable, they also are more efficient, flexible, and creative at a time when the intensity and complexity of organizational life and economic competition reward these behaviors the most." Carnevale's research demonstrates the economic benefits of having diversity on college campuses.

If African-American and Latino workers were represented at colleges and universities in the same proportions as their share of 18- to 24-year olds, U.S. wealth would increase by $231 billion every year, annual tax revenues would increase by $80 billion, and the proportion of minority families with inadequate incomes would decrease.
If the African American and Latino "communities had the same distribution of college education as the non-Hispanic white community...it would help ensure an adequate supply of skilled workers" that is currently absent in the workforce.

If the benefits of a diverse workforce are to be realized, we will need to prepare diverse students on our college campuses.

Containing a theme similar to Carnevale's, Glenda Burkhart's article on The Shape of the River, in the January-February issue of The Harvard Business Review, suggests that many U.S. corporations now regard diversity as a competitive advantage. Furthering that argument are sections in Forbes magazine (April 20, June 1, September 7, and November 16, 1998) containing testimony from more than 40 Fortune 500 companies that diversity is an important contributor to profitability.

References
Appel, M., D. Cartwright, D. G. Smith, and L. E. Wolf (1996). The Impact of Diversity on Students: A Preliminary Review of the Research Literature. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Astin, A. W. (1993a). What Matters in College? Four Critical Years Revisited. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Astin, A. W. (1993b). "Diversity and Multiculturalism: How are Students Affected?" Change. 25, 2: 44-49.

Bowen, W. G., and D. Bok. (1998). The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Carnevale, A. P. (1999). Campus Diversity and the New Economy. Paper presented at the American Council on Education's Symposium and Working Research Meeting, Arlington, VA.

Smith, D. G. (1997). Diversity Works: The Emerging Picture of How Students Benefit. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

University of Michigan (1999). The Compelling Need for Diversity in Higher Education. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan.

Wilds, D. J., and R. Wilson (1997-98). Sixteenth Annual Status Report on Minorities in Higher Education. Washington, DC: American Council on Education.

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Last Modified: May 22, 2002