Confronting the Obstacles: African Americans' Quest for Higher Education

The results indicated that African Americans (64%) were the third largest group from this cohort to attend a four-year institution falling behind Asian/Pacific Islanders (82%) and Whites (72%). However, the racial disparity that existed for African Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics compared to Asians and Whites was relatively close ranging from 11% to 2% difference. These results mirrored those of current national trends showing a similar gap in four-year college attendance. Furthermore, a logistic regression analysis revealed that socio-economic status, ability, school quality, parental expectations, teacher expectations, GPA, and students' self reported estimation of how far they were likely to go in school were both statistically significant and increased the odds of going to college. The results indicated that social demographic factors such as race, socio-economic status, and family structure support several findings that are consistent with previous studies. Whereas previous studies indicated that being African American was viewed as a hindrance to educational attainment, this study suggested that race played a vital role in the college going process. In this study, being African American, controlling for other critical factors, was an asset in predicting college attendance. Regardless of an individual's environment this study revealed that if African Americans have and display the ability they would attend college. In essence these few individuals beat the odds.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Education

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Ellerson, Terrina Yvonne

Contributors dc:contributor

• William Trent

• Education, Higher

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3250237

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/79957