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Thanks for your comment. Black women are not the most educated group as of 2022, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Here's a link that provides a detailed breakdown of educational attainment by race and gender for those 25 and over:

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d22/tables/dt22_104.10.asp

Here are the percentages of people, 25 and over, with a bachelor's degree or higher by race and gender:

Asian females - 57.8%

Asian males - 62.9%

Black females - 30.4%

Black males - 25.0%

Hispanic females - 22.9%

Hispanic males - 18.9%

White females - 43.0%

White males - 40.6%

All females - 39.0%

All males - 36.2%

Melissa Kearney's work suggests that women without college degrees are more likely to have children outside marriage than those with college degrees. Here's a link to a discussion she had about this with Jim Tankersley of the NY Times before an audience at Brookings back in September:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEgtpo9eoMs

Just before the 15-minute mark she discusses the characteristics of "unpartnered" mothers.

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How can this be when women make up about 60% of higher education students?

Must be the effects of previous generations.

A breakdown graphed by age would be very interesting.

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Thanks for your comment. The St. Louis Fed published a piece last year ("Why Do Women Outnumber Men in College Enrollment?") that includes a graphic that shows the ratio of female to male college students since 1970. I don't know how to cut and paste it into this thread, but you can access it using this link:

https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2022/mar/why-women-outnumber-men-college-enrollment

The graph shows that there were about 0.75 females enrolled on the campuses of four-year colleges for every male back in 1970. The ratio reached 1.0 during the early 1980's and was about 1.25 in 2019.

The NCES source I referenced includes data on the percentages of people with a college degree, 25 and over, going back to 1910. Gender breakouts aren't available until 1940. Data for Hispanics by gender isn't available until 1980. Data for Asians isn't available until 2003.

Here are the percentages, by race and gender, as of 1980:

Black females - 8.1%

Black males - 7.7%

Hispanic females - 6.2%

Hispanic males - 9.2%

White females - 14.4%

White males - 22.7%

All females - 13.6%

All males - 20.9%

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