Rise In Immigrants Contributes to Increase in Educational Achievement

The number of college and high school graduates continues to rise. Pew Research Center reports that about 90% of 25-29 year olds graduated from high school and more than one-third of Americans between 25-29 acquired a bachelor's degree or higher. The educational attainment gap between men and women also continues to increase. Approximately 37% of women compared to 30% of men between the ages of 25-29 have completed college. This growth in college graduates is due, in part, to an increase in the number of immigrants. In the past, natives were usually more educated than their immigrant counterparts. However, over the past decade, greater numbers of recent immigrants have at least a bachelor's degree. According to Pew, the plurality of newly arrived immigrants are from Asia. This increase in immigrants from Asia contributes to the rising educational levels among immigrants, since Asians rank among the highest educated ethnic group. This is reflected in the figure on the right, which shows that 60% of Asian immigrants have a bachelor's degree, followed by 40% of Whites, 23% of Blacks, and 15% of Hispanics.