Education Attainment

In understanding the educational picture of the region, the following Figures 6 to 9 provide the educational attainment percentage for those persons 25 years and older by race and ethnicity on:

• Less Than High School Diploma
• High School Graduate, GED or Alternative
• Some College or Associates Degree
• Bachelor’s Degrees or Higher

Arab and Chaldean information is also provided. The U.S. Census refers to educational attainment as the highest level of education completed in terms of the highest degree or the highest level of schooling completed.

• The charts depict the percentage of the population that has attained each level of education.
• The statewide average for Michigan residents having a bachelor’s degree or higher is 25.3 percent and 11.4 percent for having less than a high school diploma. In Detroit, all racial/ethnic categories have a higher percentage of residents without a high school diploma than the state average.
• With the exception of Asians/Pacific Islanders, Detroit also has a lower percentage of residents with a bachelor’s degree or higher compared to the state average.
• In contrast, all categories in Oakland County, except American Indian/Alaskan Native, exceed the state average  of 25.3% for achieving a bachelor’s degree or higher.
• In Macomb County, both the white and Asians/Pacific Islander populations also exceed the statewide average.
• The percentage of Detroit residents who have a high school diploma (but no college education) is roughly comparable with the rates in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties.

Arabs and Chaldeans

The U.S. Census Bureau must adhere to the 1997 Office of Management and Budget (OMB) standards on race and ethnicity which guide the Census Bureau in classifying written responses to the race question: white – A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.  Therefore, the U.S. Census considers Arabs and Chaldeans as white. Nearly two-thirds of Arabs and Chaldeans identify their race as “white,” while another third identify as “other.”

Arabs and Chaldeans have roughly the same percentage of college and advanced degrees as the general population, but a higher percentage has less than a high school degree. Those born in the U.S. have more education than either the general population or Arabs and Chaldeans born abroad.

Twenty-eight percent of Arabs and Chaldeans do not have a high school degree, compared to 13 percent of the general population. Fourteen percent have college degrees  and 9 percent report advanced degrees (17 percent and 10 percent respectively, in the overall population).