Examining African American and White College Students’ Degree Aspirations From 1985-1999

1. Examining African American and White College Students’ Degree Aspirations From 1985-1999 Deborah Faye Carter, Angela M. Locks, and Sonia DeLuca Fernández University of Michigan

2. Introduction • African Americans tend to earn postsecondary degrees in significantly fewer numbers than their representation in the U.S. population. • Understanding educational aspirations can assist us in structuring environments and interventions that can help students plan to earn college and graduate degrees. • College experiences actively contribute toward increasing students’ interest in and commitment to completing degrees.

3. Research Questions • What affects African American students’ degree aspirations and how does this analysis differ compared to White students? • Is there a significant difference between students’ aspirations in the 1980s, early 1990s vs. the later 1990s? • How might the predictors of students’ degree aspirations differ across the HERI and NCES datasets?

4. Data Sources • CIRP Freshman Survey data for the years 1985-1999 • Beginning Postsecondary Students Study (1990:1994). • Focus of presentation today is on CIRP. The CIRP dataset included 500,000 students: all African American students and a random sample of approximately 250,000 White students.

5. Methods & Procedures • Completed factor analytic procedures and reliability analyses. • Multivariate regression analyses separately for African American and White students in CIRP. • Regressed degree aspirations in the freshman year.

6. Regression Models • The regression models predicted the aspirations of African American and White students similarly with the R2 equally .25 for African American students and .27 for White students. • The models differed in which variables significantly affected the two groups’ educational goals.

7. Background Characteristics • Proportionally more women in the African American sample in comparison to the White sample. • African American students came from lower SES backgrounds than White students: parental income and education. • Mean parental income for African Americans was $30-$35,000 in comparison to over $50,000 for White students.

8. Background Characteristics - Regression • Gender and SES have significant effects on students’ aspirations. Female Black students and male White students tend to have higher aspirations. • Students from higher SES backgrounds tended to have higher aspirations, and SAT was a positive predictor for both groups of students. • 1996-1999 cohorts had higher aspirations

9. Institutional Characteristics • African Americans were more likely to attend institutions with lower selectivity, higher proportions of African American students, and slightly smaller enrollments than White students. • Mean selectivity: 908 for African Americans, 1017 for White students. • Average Black enrollment: 37% for African Americans, 5% for White students

10. Regression Results • Student-faculty ratio was the only negative predictor of students’ aspirations. Those who attended institutions with lower student-faculty ratios tended to have higher aspirations. • Institutional size is a positive predictor. • Students attending institutions with larger proportions of African Americans tended to have higher aspirations.

11. Regression Results: Pre-college Experiences & Major • Hours per week spent talking with teachers outside of class & tutoring other students had positive relationships to degree aspirations. • Students who have high self-ratings on emotional well-being and academic ability have higher educational aspirations. • Students who were undeclared or majored in unspecified fields tended to have higher aspirations than declared majors – except for Biological Sciences and Health.

12. Financial Aid & Financial Concerns – Regression Results • Working for pay in high school had a positive effect on African American students’ degree aspirations but this relationship was negative for White students. • Choosing to attend their campus because of low tuition had a negative relationship to degree aspirations for both groups. • Choosing a campus because the student was offered financial assistance was also a negative predictor of aspirations.

13. Summary • Student background characteristics seem to have strong affects on students’ degree aspirations. • Pre-college achievement also has strong effects on aspirations. • Students seem to balance academic considerations with financial ones in terms of considering their future educational attainment.

14. Implications & Future Directions • As researchers and practitioners, we need to continue to focus on financial aid and the kind of information students receive during their college planning and choice processes. • Students take into account levels of financial awards in their assessment of future degree attainment. • We plan to expand our analyses to perform separate analyses by cohort group: does the impact of financial differ for earlier cohorts?