LatinaLista — Yesterday, Latina Lista posted a story of the study that found community college graduates (of whom the majority are Latino) were less likely to be admitted to medical school. In talking to one of the authors of the study, UCLA Dr. Efrain Talamantes, he supplied one more interesting fact of his research.
He said that even when community college graduates were attending a four-year university and had a good GPA and “things were all equal” compared to their peers, they were still less likely to get into medical school.
It’s a situation that underscores the frustration and challenges many Latino and other students-of-color feel when they know they’re doing everything right — pursuing higher education, graduating with good GPAs, receiving degrees — only to discover it’s not enough.
Why?
From a new analysis of the 2013 Survey of Consumer Finances by demos.org, people of color always seem to be the underdog – even when they’re more educated.
Matt Bruenig of demos.org found that white high school dropouts have more wealth than Latino and Black college graduates. In fact, at all education levels, whites have more wealth.
The median white family with an education level below high school has a net worth of $51.3k, while the median black and hispanic family with a college degree has a net worth of $25.9k and $41k respectively.
This disturbing realization lays bare the ugly truth that discrimination and racism are so ingrained within the nation’s social fabric that while some believe the nation has achieved a color-blind status (you have to be blind to believe that), a quick review of how many people-of-color are represented among students in medical schools, employees at tech companies, members of corporate boards, are loan recipients, in management positions, are homeowners, etc. reveal another reality.
It’s a reality that the country has been able to conveniently ignore and dismiss because educated minority voices were never loud enough for very long to make a difference — but times are changing.
