Today’s economy and society standards thrive on being more and more competitive, the young professionals need to seek at least one higher education degree. Some fields even require a master’s or a PHD degree. As education became a profitable industry in the US, recently a booming number of for-profit colleges emerged.

I decided to take a closer look at higher education trends by race and ethnicity. I found a nice data published by NCES, a several points catch the eye. I put together an interactive chart to better understand the trends. High school completion rate was doubled since 1940s and today, more than 90% of the society has a high school diploma. These figures are fairly optimistic. However, back then US ranked first in the world and in 2012, it ranked 22nd (OECD).

Test preparations, funding problems (student debts) and meeting other requirements; it is already a challenging task to get a college degree. For most students, this really is a tough decision. ACT results indicate that, in terms of math or science, most students are actually not ready for the university. People usually have to take supplementary courses to make up for this.

According to NCES, about 1 million students drop out of school every year. This leaves students with debts and the schools suffer too. It is known that some prominent start-up geniuses abruptly left school earlier. Although, studies show that the unemployment rate of those who drop out is significantly higher than diploma holders.

US still needs skilled college graduates. Today, the unemployment rate is rather low, the country average following around 5%. Predictions suggest that the need for college graduates will increase in the near future. Even though immigration helps close the gap, US has to invest a lot more on education and help students get back on their feet.

Furthermore, the costs of education in the US changed dramatically in the past years. The trend the tuition costs follow is pretty far from the mortgages or the inflation rates. The number of people who go to college is increasing and so is the demand. People do need higher education to be able to get a job, therefore we are looking at a deadlock. More and more millenials go to college now and this burden falls on their shoulder. They need to have a good education to get a job. At the same time, the loans will deduct from their earnings and they will be left with a low income, for a long time.

Male Student Stats

Female Student Stats

Unlike most developing countries, US does not face a gender-inequality on education. On the contrary, more girls get a college or a graduate degree than boys (by an insignificant margin). US would be using its full potential if the gap for ethnicities closed too.

When it comes to ethnicity comparison, the education level follows a similar pattern with income statistics. Here, we see that more Asians have a degree than white people. We also notice wilder fluctuations in this population. Hispanic and African American ethnicities seem to have the lowest rate of degree acquisition. After all, the race gap is closing, but not fast enough. Looking at the data from the last 10 years, the advancement is quite stagnant.

Another interesting point to note, is the indifference of the year 2008 and after that. Apparently, the economic crisis didn’t really affect the education industry. Perhaps the crisis just coincided with the natural peak of the chart and its effects aren’t clearly visible.

In the light of these facts, we can say that US is not doing bad. Further progress is crucial to create a sustainable workforce and a stable economy. People of all colors should be able to get higher education and fulfill the needs of the country.