The Department of Education recently released its annual publication on the condition of American education, The Condition of Education. This one report, and the statistics within it, always forms a major component public understanding about how the U.S. is doing in terms of education. It’s divided into several parts. The higher education component contains some interesting new revelations:
•White people account for 63 percent of college students.
•Black people account for 14 percent of college students.
•Hispanics account for 12 percent of college students.
•The most popular college majors were business (21 percent), social sciences and
history (11 percent), “health professions and related
clinical sciences” (7 percent), education (7 percent), and
psychology (6 percent).•Between 1998 and 2008 there was a 32 percent increase in the number
of bachelor’s degrees awarded in America.•About 45 percent of full-time and 79 percent of part-time college students
ages under age 24 had jobs while attending school.•Public institutions award 64 percent of bachelor’s degrees.
•Private colleges and universities award 31 percent of bachelor’s degrees.
•For-profit companies award 5 percent of bachelor’s degrees.
There’s a whole lot of other relevant information in this publication, about things like faculty salaries and benefits, study abroad, and growth and changes in various trends.
About 57 percent of all bachelor’s degrees conferred in 2007-08, by the way, went to women.
