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Women Boost Education Pace | |||
High School Graduation Rates Reach All-Time High; |
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Last
year, 85 percent of adults age 25 and over had completed at least high school,
an all-time high, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today. Also in 2003, 27
percent of adults age 25 and over had a college degree, another record.
The percentage of non-Hispanic whites (89 percent) and blacks (80 percent) who had a high school diploma or higher marked new highs. The proportion of blacks rose by 10 percentage points from 1993 to 2003, while non-Hispanic whites saw an increase of 5 percentage points in this category. The report, Educational Attainment in the United States: 2003, [PDF] said women made large gains in earning college degrees. Over the past decade, women with a bachelor’s degree or higher jumped nearly 7 percentage points, from 19 percent to 26 percent. During the same time, men had a 4-percentage-point increase going from 25 percent to 29 percent. For the second year in a row, women had a slightly higher proportion of high school graduates (85 percent) than men (84 percent). Other highlights for 2003:
The data are from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement to the 2003 Current Population Survey. For further information on the source of the data and accuracy of the estimates, including standard errors and confidence intervals, go to Appendix G of <http://www.census.gov/apsd/techdoc/cps/cpsmar03.pdf>. -X- |