The percentage of Americans with college degrees in the US increased significantly in recent years. In 2016, 33.4% of people aged 25 and over had a college degree or a higher qualification, 3% more compared to 2011.
The difference between males and females who finished college in 2016 in the US wasn’t big. 33.7% of women held a Bachelor or higher education in 2016, higher than in 2011 (30.1%). On the other hand, 33.2% of men held a Bachelor or higher education in 2016, slightly more than in 2011 (30.8%).
Although the difference of college-educated students is small between races it’s still worth noting. In 2016, 37.3% of White people in the US had a Bachelor or higher education, compared to 23.5% of Black people and 16.4% of Hispanic people who held such level of education. In comparison to 2011, we notice a slight increase in three cohorts. In 2011, White – 34.0%, Black 20.2%, Hispanic,14.1% were college educated or higher.
Share This Infographic On Your Site
A record number of 1,920,718 college diplomas were awarded to students in the US in 2015/16, the NCES education statistics show.
These data were made available to the public in a report published recently by The National Center for Statistics in the US. It revealed that as the overall number of people enrolled in education, particularly in higher education, the rate at which they are granted with a diploma is increasing too.
Since the 1970/71 academic year, from which the NCES derived education statistics, the number of college graduates has increased steadily and has never experienced an annual drop. Comparing to the 2012/13 academic year when 1,840,381 students graduated from a college, in 2015/16 the number increased by a bit more than 4% at 1,920,718.
Figures from the past show that the number has seen an upward trend for years on, exceeding many times the projected reach.
The projected number for the academic year 2015/16 was 1,892,000, but in reality, it exceeded this number reaching 1,920,718. This is to say, the number of college graduates has also surpassed the projected number of the 2016/17 academic year and even 2017/18.
It can be easily pointed out an interesting data when looking at the projected trend of college graduation rates. This report predicts that the number of college graduates will reach 1,900,000 in 2017/18, while a year later the number will descend at 1,887,000 to jump at 1,913,000 on the upcoming year.
This report covered other details related to the US higher education. When speaking in terms of gender, females being awarded a college diploma dominated male graduates. Out of the entire number of college graduates during 2015/16, 57% of them or 1,098,939 were female graduates.
Business and Management & Marketing, Health professions and related programs, Social Sciences and History, Psychology, Biological and Medical Sciences, Engineering are some of the study fields that counted for the highest proportion of the total number of graduates.
Many experts support the idea that the international education sector in the US will be disturbed by political movements there. Although significant negative effects had come already up on the horizon, the US education statistics remain unbelievable including the number of college graduates.
In the end, one can easily conclude that if this upward trend of college graduates keeps going at the same rate, we’re just a few years far from the day when the number of college graduates in the US will mount and exceed 2 million. To have a clearer idea what a big achievement this is we can compare it to the number of graduates in another big country that counts millions of enrolled students. For, instance, statistics from 2015 show that Germany had 545,000 graduates from tertiary education which is far from the US.