Several studies have pointed out the evident racial achievement gap but recent research has revealed a sad truth -- an African-American male with an associate degree has the same chances of getting a job as a white male with a high school diploma.
The study, conducted by Young Invincibles, looks at the effect of race and education on employment, revealing the impact race can have on an individual's chances of getting a job.
The findings aren't incredibly surprising, considering that black millennials are more than two times more likely to face unemployment than their white counterparts, at 16.6 percent compared to 7.1 percent. But the study delves deeper, exploring hiring discrimination, high black male and female incarceration rates and the gap in generational wealth between whites and African-Americans.
In an interview with Think Progress, Tom Allison, one of the study's authors, pointed out the positive impact additional degrees can have on African-American earning and employment potential.
According to the study, even though unemployment is higher among African Americans at every level of education, the added gains in income and employment opportunities gained from getting an additional degree is much greater for African Americans than whites. For example, a professional degree gives a black male a 146 percent larger increase in employment opportunities than his white counterparts. A bachelor’s degree raises the median wage of a black man by $10,000 per year, compared to a raise of $6,100 per year for a white man.
But despite that fact, African-Americans still face challenges obtaining degrees at all educational levels. Census Bureau data shows that black students are twice as likely to drop out of high school as their white counterparts, and less likely to obtain a college degree.