Adverse Impact in Black Student 6-Year College Graduation Rates

Using recent 6-year college graduation data from the U.S. Department of Education, for the nation as a whole and the 50 states and District of Columbia, the respective graduation percentages for white and black students were compared employing the four-fifths rule for adverse impact, first proposed in the Federal Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures published by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1978. Results indicated: (1) pronounced adverse impact using the four-fifths rule on black students at the national level, (2) evidence of adverse impact on black students in 48 of the 51 states and District of Columbia, (3) no adverse impact on black students in Maine, New Hampshire, or Rhode Island, and (4) the ten states with the worst performance were Alaska, Kansas, Michigan, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, and Colorado. Recommendations to address these disparate college graduation rates for black students are offered.