College Enrollment Meets the Browning of America

Several weeks ago I sat in on a presentation where a professor was arguing for what he called 'the browning of America.' The baby boomers will die off in the next 50 years, white birth rates have held steady or declined a bit, the Latino population will surpass the black population in the next decade or so, and both black and latino birth rates far surpass white folks. Ergo, the browning of America.

Last week I heard an NPR report that this year's college enrollment is 58% female and 42% male with an ever-widening gap between men and women who make it to college. There has been much head-scratching about what's happening to boys in schools--are the learning styles and educational models inherently biased towards girls?

But I can't help but wonder if the first trend might help explain the second. In the African-American population at least, black women are far, far, far more likely than black men to make it to college. A combination of a billion factors make this a reality. My guess is that it's similar in the Latino population.

So as our education browns, we will have more and more minority women who are far more educated than much of the culture. I have only blind guesses as to how this will affect our country, but I wouldn't bet against a minority woman president in the next 50 years--well, okay, maybe the next 100.