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According to the latest statistics provided JBHE by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), there are 23,173 black students currently enrolled in higher education who receive either a full or partial athletic scholarship from the college or university in which they are enrolled. Although, overall, blacks make up slightly more than 10 percent of total U.S. enrollments in higher education, black scholarship athletes make up 21.3 percent of all students receiving athletic scholarships. But the number of blacks who receive athletic scholarships accounts for only 1.5 percent of the 1.6 million black students currently enrolled in higher education.
Despite the public perception of African-American college athletes as "dumb jocks" who are in college only to compete on the athletic field, the evidence is clear that black students receiving athletic scholarships actually turn in a better academic performance than do black students as a whole. Overall, without reference to athletics, the bad news is that only 37 percent of African Americans who enter a four-year college in this country graduate within six years from the same institution they entered as freshmen. But a much higher 45 percent of black scholarship athletes earn their diplomas within the six-year period.
An athletic scholarship greatly increases the chances of earning a degree for both black women and black men. Only 31 percent of all black men who enter a four-year college earn a bachelor's degree within six years. But 41 percent of black men on athletic scholarship go on to graduate. For black women, the overall nationwide graduation rate is 42 percent. But 57 percent of black women on athletic scholarship go on to earn a bachelor's degree within the six-year period.
It is true too that white scholarship athletes also graduate at a higher rate than white students generally. But in measuring the improvement in graduation rates, the benefit of an athletic scholarship appears to benefit blacks more than it does whites.
Explaining the Higher Graduation Rates of Black Student Athletes
Why do black athletes show a college persistence rate that is higher than African-American college students generally? Some observers suggest that many college athletes, both black and white, are steered to an academic curriculum that is less than challenging in order that they will remain eligible to...