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News, Views and Careers for All of Higher Education
July 27, 2007
Understanding Gaps Among Asian Groups
Many discussions about affirmative action or demographics in higher education start with the assumption that Asian American students are outperforming everyone else and don’t need any help. That view is frustrating to many Asian Americans and some educators who say that — even if true on average — it results in too little attention being paid to members of some groups that are not doing well at all educationally.
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The U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report Thursday that backs up those concerns. The report notes that by most measures Asian Americans have a higher educational attainment than other groups, with almost half of Asian Americans aged 25 or older having a four-year college degree, a percentage far greater than those for white adults (almost one third) or black or Latino adults (less than one fifth). But this overall success, the GAO found, “masks” the realities of many Asian subgroups in educational preparation and attainment.
For example, the report found that half of Southeast Asian high school students are not enrolled in college preparatory programs, more than half of Southeast Asian and Native American and Pacific Islander students are in the lower socioeconomic quartiles, and many Asian groups set aside less money for their children’s college education than do members of other racial and ethnic groups.
Educational Attainment and Average Income of Asian-American Groups, 2005
|
Group |
% of Adults With at Least 4-Year Degree |
Average Income |
|
Asian Indian |
68% |
$66,000 |
|
Korean |
54% |
$52,000 |
|
Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Sri Lankan |
54% |
$48,000 |
|
Chinese |
53% |
$56,000 |
|
Filipino |
48% |
$46,000 |
|
Japanese |
44% |
$59,000 |
|
Indonesian, Malaysian, Thai |
44% |
$40,000 |
|
Vietnamese |
25% |
$41,000 |
|
Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander |
17% |
$38,000 |
|
Cambodian, Laotian, Hmong |
13% |
$32,000 |
The GAO also found significant differences in terms of how much money families from different Asian groups were saving for a child’s future college education.
Amount Set Aside for Higher Education by Asian-American Families, by Group
|
Group |
None |
Up to $10,000 |
$10,001-$20,000 |
>$20,000 |
|
Southeast Asian |
12% |
73% |
4% |
8% |
|
Filipino |
3% |
51% |
10% |
32% |
|
South Asian |
6% |
34% |
17% |
22% |
|
Korean |
3% |
40% |
17% |
42% |
|
Chinese |
9% |
31% |
22% |
37% |
|
Japanese |
6% |
41% |
23% |
27% |
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Comments
Asian and the diversity within
The stereotype that all asian are the same (look alike and are alike) permeate not just in mainstream society, but in our educaitonal institutions. When programs out there that mean to provide the underrepresented and underserved with services, it’s important that they go beyond the artificial race lines. What is real are those numbers you see there and the lack of attention and services to masses of students in Southeast Asian and Pacific Islander groups.
Ay Saechao, at 4:20 pm EDT on July 27, 2007
Diversity
The same diversity of outcomes is evident in all racial & ethnic groups. Irish vs. German immigrant whites, Sephardic & Ashkenazi Jews, Cuban & Mexican immigrants, southern vs northern Chinese, etc., etc. True in the US, Argentina, Nigeria, Indonesia.... The public discourse (and law)ignore this inconvenient diversity.
Lee, at 4:10 pm EDT on July 28, 2007
The comments made me sick. Cambodian, Loatian and Hmong people are also still recovering from Genocides, and the majority of those in America are refugees, not immigrants. The difference being about choice. I don’t think it’s fair to make assumptions and generalizations linking this to culture when you’re talking about displaced groups of people who have had their entire economy and social structure torn apart. Moreover, These groups have only recently arrived in vast numbers to this country. If you survey any other group of people within their first 20 to 40 years, I’m sure their percentile ranking will not be much different.
Like other minority groups that generally score low academically or tend to fall in lower income brackets, I believe that access and opportunities are the cause and affect of these statistics.
vannoch, at 12:25 pm EDT on August 1, 2007
History Repeats Itself
James Michener, prior to writing his city telephone-directory-sized novels, wrote short novels and essays. In his “Return to Paradise” (1950) he wrote an essay on Fiji’s history, political and racial issues that is still relevant to understanding the differences between Pacific Islander populations and expatriate Indian nationals.Frankly, a lot of what he said about the Fiji expatriate Indians 57 years ago is applicable to Indian nationals generally today.
Scrawed, at 5:40 pm EDT on August 5, 2007
Treatment of Asians by U.S. military authority
For an interesting review of Asian and American relationships during the early 1960s, I recommend that you review the novel, “B.C. Street.” You will find it listed by that title on amazon.com or by visiting the web site: www.okinawa-bcstreet.com.
E. A. Cooper, at 10:40 am EST on February 16, 2008
In the majority of studies of Asian Americans in higher education does not recognize the within it the diaspora of Southeast Asians. The Asian American experience to America has historically been documented since the 1800s, like the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. But withing this board term of Asian, includes East Asia(India, Pakistant, etc), Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Vietnam, Loas, etc), East Asia (China, Japan, etc), etc. Each ethnic group that entered the US each has a different story. The Chinese, Japanese, and Korean community in the US are much more established than the Southeast Asian community Hmong, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Thai, etc. They are the recent refugee/immigrant groups that have entered the US and their data/tracking are not well established to be generalized in the Asian American category. Their journey from refugee camps and settling in the urban poverty have just started to provide understanding of the first generation of Southeast Asian Americans.
Chelse, RACE AND CULTURE BOTH MATTERS, at 7:50 pm EDT on September 21, 2008
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Culture matter, Race/Genetic doesn’t
In general, Chinese, Japanese and Korean share similar culture than others. They also more or less share Buddhist that is originated from India.
Southeast Asian share some culture from China and India.
Beside this, geographic factors also set in.
My take of this is: There are factors that influence people’s behavior and made them different but the race is not the deciding factor. People can learn to behave different. These don’t have to be inherited. But parents definitely have big influence on their child.
Duncan, at 3:05 pm EDT on July 27, 2007