Sociocultural Perspective: The Factors Affecting African American Graduation Rate In Higher Education

Abstract

The graduation rate for African-Americans in the United States is alarming at a time when jobs require college degrees and advanced career knowledge. The disparities in African-American graduation rate are partly due to the lack of allocated resources and insufficient preparation. Educators and leaders are concerned about the challenges facing African American students and their graduation rate. Hines et al. (2020) and Kunjufu (2007) argued that the impact of class differences and socio-economics on teaching and learning puts forward other factors as better predictors for educators to gauge student performance such as embracing success stories in schools that serve low-income students and teacher training program, teacher expectations, professional development, and educational leadership are some of the main factors that determined the educational outcomes of a school. Perhaps, the most important hallmark of success for African Americans is their capacity to learn, cooperate, collaborate, and adapt. African American enrollments show improvement at the nation’s highest-ranked colleges and universities over the past quarter-century (The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 2006). The primary purpose of this article is to raise awareness on African-American graduation rate in higher education. The secondary purpose of this article is to educate administrators, faculty, institutional leaders, and those involved in the affairs of African-American education programs to become competent on the issues and challenges facing African-Americans in higher education. The author examined the factors that become barriers for African Americans in higher education setting including the role of gender and the challenges of finances in the education space through meta-analysis review of empirical knowledge on African American education. Keywords: Social Cultural Education; Urban Education; African-American, Graduation Rate, https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8444-8619