A study recently published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review reveals that white Americans who dropped out of high school are three times more affluent than black Americans who graduated college.
The mixed-method study titled ‘”Family Achievements?”: How a College Degree Accumulates Wealth for Whites and Not For Blacks’ was published in 2017 by Brandeis University researchers Tatjana Meschede, Joanna Taylor, Alexis Mann and Thomas Shapiro.
The group utilized data during the time period 1989-2013 from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics as well as the Institute on Assets and Social Policy Levering Mobility.
A 2017 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review reveals that white Americans who dropped out of high school are three times more affluent than black Americans who have a college degree
The study also found that white college students are much more likely to receive free financial handouts from their parents than black college students
‘While it is true that getting an education will improve your chances of attaining greater wealth, it is not true that education equalizes across race,’ Taylor said of the findings.
‘What we’re seeing is that for African-American families, there are some costs to getting a college education that don’t exist for white families.’
The study found that black families with one or more parents who graduated college held about one-third less the wealth than white families with one or more parents who dropped out of school as a teen.
The study also found that white parents who hold a college degree are more likely to give their kids free financial handouts – compared to black parents with a degree.
Joanna Taylor (left) and Tatjana Meschede (right) are two of the Brandeis University researchers
Alexis Mann (left) and Thomas Shapiro (right) also contributed to the study
‘Black students are more likely to take student loans and more likely to take larger student loans than white students,’ Taylor said.
Black families overall are less likely to receive a hefty inheritance payout.
‘Among college-educated black families, about 13 percent get an inheritance of more than $10,000, as opposed to about 41 percent of white, college-educated families.’
Taylor said, on average, a white family inheritance amounts to more than $150,000 – while a black family inheritance, on average, amounts to less than $40,000.
‘We think about education as the great equalizer, when clearly it’s not,’ Meschede added of the study.
‘It’s much more complex than that… there’s so much more needed in order to support the black community toward closing the racial wealth gap.’