Race/Ethnic and Sex Differences in Type of College Attended: Lesser, Equal, or Greater Access?

• In Event: 231 - Section on Sociology of Population Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 02. Race and Ethnicity in the United States: Critical Social Issues

Abstract

The question that this paper explores is whether the higher representation of women and racial and ethnic minorities is concentrated in lower quality colleges while access to higher quality college is still limited. The paper also explores the degree to which female and minority representation is influenced by socioeconomic factors and by performance factors such as test scores and grade point average. We use data from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002.
We use a combination of private/public and the Carnegie classification to produce a typology of college and universities. We use the Carnegie classification to categorize the top 1/3 of students who attend either high-level research universities or private liberal arts and sciences colleges. Among the other 2/3 of students we separate those who attend private college from those who attend public colleges. The results indicate that when Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians are compared with Whites who have similar socioeconomic background, test scores and grade point averages, they do as well or better than whites in attendance at four-year colleges. Once test scores and grade point average are controlled, females do equally well as males. There is no support for adverse effects of race/ethnicity or sex beyond that due to socioeconomic status or high school achievement but evidence of equal or greater access.

Authors

• Roger A. Wojtkiewicz, Ball State University

• Lisa Pellerin, Ball State University