College majors and income disparities (op-ed)
Sometimes statistics are treated like scriptures. They’re accepted without question and repeated regardless of accuracy.
During the 1990’s one statistic was quoted more than John 3:16. It stated more black males were in prison than in college.
This prison/college ratio was accompanied by the disparity in annual cost of inmate/ public school student. The latter figure was emphasized to prove the state prioritized incarceration suggesting the prison/college ratio was intended and past patterns of racism remained modern.
When the data was filtered through preexisting beliefs of racism the generalization was alarming. But were there really more black males in prison than in college?
A prison is defined as a building in which people are legally held as a punishment for a crime they have committed or while awaiting trial. (Contrast definition of penitentiary: A prison for people convicted of serious crimes.) And a college is defined as a unit of a university, furnishing courses of instruction in the liberal arts and sciences, usually leading to a bachelor’s degree. (The emphasis here is on the four year requirement.)
Based on these definitions a statistician could easily include black males awaiting trial in a county jail and exclude black males in a community college. Then when prison age (18 and up) and the traditional age of a full time bachelor degree candidate (18-24) is factored in the statistician simply has more black males in prison to count.
The statistic may be a mathematical fact due to terminology but it has no basis in reality. So the conspiracy was in the calculation and both sides of the political spectrum turned the statistic into scripture to preach to their respective cults.
At a 2007 NAACP forum presidential candidate Barack Obama said, “We have more work to do when more young men languish in prison than attend colleges and universities across America.”
I guess President Obama issued an executive order for the statisticians to adjust their calculations during his terms in office, because recently I read “African American are graduating from college at a historically high rate according to new research.”
Good news right?
Not exactly, it was underneath a headline that read: Blacks choose low-wage college majors. I cringed after reading the headline and remembered the section in Malcolm X’s autobiography when he was told he should aspire to be a carpenter because law wasn’t a realistic field for a Negro.
Now progress is to the point when black students won’t be discouraged from unrealistic fields they’ll be steered away from low-wage majors.
Great.
Guidance counselors will explain the new research, “Blacks are overrepresented in service fields. These low-paying majors are of high social value but low economic value. There are long-term economic consequences for those career choices. There’s a $4 million gap in lifetime earnings between an early childhood educator and a petroleum engineer. Overall, black college graduates have less savings and disposable income than their white peers.”
The new research also stated, “Another factor is the type of colleges that African American’s attend … Most Blacks graduate from two-year colleges or open-admission four-year universities … Most of those institutions offer a limited number of majors and lack resources.” The researchers advise steering black students toward STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) to reverse the trend.
So income disparities are stressed between “low-wage” college majors and STEM majors as an economic incentive to influence black career choice, but at the same time the new research indicates the correlation of institutional racism in black/white income disparities isn’t necessarily the causation. The researchers didn’t intent to point that out.
First published in the New Pittsburgh Courier 2/24/16
During the 1990’s one statistic was quoted more than John 3:16. It stated more black males were in prison than in college.
This prison/college ratio was accompanied by the disparity in annual cost of inmate/ public school student. The latter figure was emphasized to prove the state prioritized incarceration suggesting the prison/college ratio was intended and past patterns of racism remained modern.
When the data was filtered through preexisting beliefs of racism the generalization was alarming. But were there really more black males in prison than in college?
A prison is defined as a building in which people are legally held as a punishment for a crime they have committed or while awaiting trial. (Contrast definition of penitentiary: A prison for people convicted of serious crimes.) And a college is defined as a unit of a university, furnishing courses of instruction in the liberal arts and sciences, usually leading to a bachelor’s degree. (The emphasis here is on the four year requirement.)
Based on these definitions a statistician could easily include black males awaiting trial in a county jail and exclude black males in a community college. Then when prison age (18 and up) and the traditional age of a full time bachelor degree candidate (18-24) is factored in the statistician simply has more black males in prison to count.
The statistic may be a mathematical fact due to terminology but it has no basis in reality. So the conspiracy was in the calculation and both sides of the political spectrum turned the statistic into scripture to preach to their respective cults.
At a 2007 NAACP forum presidential candidate Barack Obama said, “We have more work to do when more young men languish in prison than attend colleges and universities across America.”
I guess President Obama issued an executive order for the statisticians to adjust their calculations during his terms in office, because recently I read “African American are graduating from college at a historically high rate according to new research.”
Good news right?
Not exactly, it was underneath a headline that read: Blacks choose low-wage college majors. I cringed after reading the headline and remembered the section in Malcolm X’s autobiography when he was told he should aspire to be a carpenter because law wasn’t a realistic field for a Negro.
Now progress is to the point when black students won’t be discouraged from unrealistic fields they’ll be steered away from low-wage majors.
Great.
Guidance counselors will explain the new research, “Blacks are overrepresented in service fields. These low-paying majors are of high social value but low economic value. There are long-term economic consequences for those career choices. There’s a $4 million gap in lifetime earnings between an early childhood educator and a petroleum engineer. Overall, black college graduates have less savings and disposable income than their white peers.”
The new research also stated, “Another factor is the type of colleges that African American’s attend … Most Blacks graduate from two-year colleges or open-admission four-year universities … Most of those institutions offer a limited number of majors and lack resources.” The researchers advise steering black students toward STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) to reverse the trend.
So income disparities are stressed between “low-wage” college majors and STEM majors as an economic incentive to influence black career choice, but at the same time the new research indicates the correlation of institutional racism in black/white income disparities isn’t necessarily the causation. The researchers didn’t intent to point that out.
First published in the New Pittsburgh Courier 2/24/16
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