A new survey shows that recent graduates from for-profit colleges are less likely to feel respected … [+]
Only about a quarter of recent college graduates (27%) strongly agree that if they had raised concerns about discrimination on campus, their alma mater would have fully investigated it. And while 53% of alums overall strongly agreed that they were treated with respect by faculty, just slightly more than a third of Black graduates felt that way.
These are two of several takeaways from a new Gallup Alumni Survey, based on web surveys with a random sample of 19,925 adults between October 24-November 7, 2019. The results reported on here are drawn from 1,617 respondents who graduated from college between 2010 and 2019. All items were answered on a five-point scale, ranging from strongly agree (5) to strongly disagree (1).
The survey focuses on recent graduates’ perceptions of issues of diversity and inclusion at the institutions where they earned their undergraduate degree. The “discrimination results,” just released today by Gallup, are reported here, and the “respect” survey, reported last week, can be found here. Gallup indicates that more reports on other issues of campus culture will be forthcoming.
Perceptions About Discrimination
Graduates from public institutions (29%) were slightly more likely than graduates from private not-for-profit (25%) and private for-profit (24%) colleges to strongly agree that their institution would have fully investigated matters of reported discrimination. However, three times as many private, for-profit graduates (15%) as private, not-for-profit or public college graduates (5%) strongly disagree that their institution would have fully investigated such a complaint.
Only 19% of Black graduates strongly agreed that their institution would have fully investigated a reported issue of discrimination, substantially less than the 29% of White graduates who felt that way. Just 23% of Hispanic graduates strongly agreed that their alma mater would have fully investigated a claim.
Females (25%) were a bit less likely than male graduates (30%) to believe their institution would have fully investigated a discrimination claim. By a similarly small margin, graduates who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) were less likely (24%) than their non-LGBT peers (28%) to report that their institution would have investigated a discrimination complaint.
Perceptions About Respect
The type of institution from which respondents graduated was strongly related to their perception of peer respect. Graduates from public (50%) or private, not-for-profit colleges (53%) were almost twice as likely to report they were treated with respect by fellow undergraduates than those who attended private, for-profit institutions (28%).
White and Hispanic graduates were substantially more likely than their Black and Asian peers to say they were treated with respect by other students. At least half of White (51%) and Hispanic graduates (55%) strongly agreed that their classmates treated them respectfully, compared with 40% of Black and Asian graduates.
When it came to perceptions of how they were treated by faculty, only 30% of graduates from for-profit colleges strongly agreed they were treated with respect by faculty. By contrast, 61% of graduates from private, not-for-profit institutions reported being treated with respect by faculty members, and 50% of graduates from public institutions said the same.
Race also mattered when it came to how graduates felt they were regarded by faculty members. White (54%), Hispanic (53%), and Asian (50%) graduates strongly agreed that faculty treated them with respect, but only 36% of Black graduates felt that way.
Implications
An increasingly diverse population, college students are understandably concerned about the culture of fairness and inclusiveness on campus. These Gallup data suggest that recent college graduates often do not feel confident that their alma maters could be trusted to do the right thing when it comes to the sensitive matters of behaving respectfully and rooting out discrimination.
Barely a quarter of alums strongly agreed that their former college would have fully investigated a complaint of discrimination. Even if we assume that the respondents were hesitant to endorse the strongly agree (score of 5) option, the combined percentage of those answering with a “5” or “4” was only 54%, meaning that just slightly more than half of graduates expressed much confidence in their institution’s follow-up on a complaint.
When it comes to feelings of respect, Black and Asian graduates were less likely to feel they were treated respectfully by fellow students, and Black students felt much less respected by faculty than the other student groups.
Students graduating from for-profit colleges were much less likely to feel respected by fellow students or faculty than graduates from public or private, non-profit institutions. And they were three times more likely to strongly disagree than graduates from other types of college that their alma mater would fully investigate complaints of discrimination.
Overall, the results suggest that colleges and universities still have work to do if they want their students to feel they are respected and that expressed concerns about discrimination will be taken seriously. Particular attention should be directed at the for-profit schools, which did not fare well in comparison to other types of institutions. The performance of the for-profit sector has been severely faulted on various grounds, and these surveys will do little to allay such criticisms. Nor should they.
