Widespread Higher Education Is New And Other Education Trends

From here.

In 1950, because WWII interrupted higher education for many people in born from 1915-1925 (ages 16-26 when the U.S. joined World War II, and 20-30 when World War II ended), the percentage of adults age 25-30 who had completed 4 year college degrees in the U.S. was at a record low. About 4% of white men, about 2.5% of white women, and about 1% of black men and women.

The Great Depression that led up to World War II also wasn't good for college attendance. Many people simply couldn't afford to stay in school to get a high school education, let alone a four year college education.

Now, that's changed. About 45% of white women, 35% of white men, 25% of black women, and 17% of black men who were aged 25-35 in 2015 had earned four year college degrees, and there was no sign that the trend was abating. 

Graduate degrees were rare indeed. They basically didn't exist prior to 1870. They have become much more common, with the rates of graduate degree completion between 2000 and 2010 doubled between then.

Since 2000, the number of people age 25 and over whose highest degree was a master’s has doubled to 21 million. The number of doctoral degree holders has more than doubled to 4.5 million. Now, about 13.1 percent of U.S. adults have an advanced degree, up from 8.6 percent in 2000.

From here. 

From here.

Public v. Private College Enrollment

Higher education enrollment in 2016 (which was 19.841 million in all) was about 74% public, 20% private non-profit (about 13.4% of the total at secular nonprofit institutions, and about 7.6% of the total at religiously affiliated institutions), and 6% for profit.

According to this source:

Religiously affiliated educational institutions often developed in response to social changes. For example, the world's first college charted to grant degrees to women was Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia (1836). At the conclusion of the Civil War, the Freedman's Aid Society responded to absence of educational opportunity for newly freed slaves by creating institutes and colleges throughout the South. Many of these institutions continue their critical role in education in the early twenty-first century. Often church-related colleges began as academies or seminaries and then grew to college or university status. Many had short lives, closing as the result of social, demographic, political, and–quite often–financial reasons. Some colleges severed their relationship with the religious communities and continue in the twenty-first century as quality independent institutions. Among these are Vanderbilt University, Auburn University, University of Southern California, Oberlin College, and Princeton University. In 1881, 80 percent of the colleges in the United States were church related and private. In 2001, 20 percent of the colleges–approximately 980 institutions–had connection to a religious tradition. The "Digest of Educational Statistics, 2000," indicates that sixty-six religious groups in the United States currently sponsor colleges or universities. These institutions enroll more than 1.5 million students.

Notably, the share of higher education enrollment at private religiously affiliated institutions (about 7.6%) is quite close to that at the K-12 level discussed below (7.8%).

In both cases, the extent to which a religious affiliation meaningfully impacts the operations of the institution and is economically important, varies widely. Many, but not all, have undergone a shift from what:

George M. Marsden characterizes colleges and universities as moving from a perspective of "Protestant establishment" to one of "established nonbelief," a move toward embracing secularization and diminishing religious tradition.

The economic subsidy from affiliated religious institutions is now usually small, even though this wasn't necessarily true historically:

Religiously affiliated colleges and universities also receive expressions of partnerships and support from their sponsoring tradition. Financial support for the institutions usually represents less than 1 percent of their budgets; this is a radical decrease from the 1980s.

Figure 1 is from here.

But, since then, changed in federal financial aid policies have caused for profit higher education enrollments to plummet without offsetting gains in public high educational institutions and only modest gains in non-profit higher educational institution enrollments (mostly due to the successful conversion of a few large for profit institutions, like Ashford University and Grand Canyon University, from for profit to non-profit status).

Community college enrollments have also slipped in recent years, something that isn't very visible in measures of four year degree completion.

K-12 Education Enrollment Trends

As of 2015-2016 (the most recent statistics easily available to me), the national four year high school graduation rate in regular high school programs (as opposed, e.g., to GED programs) was 84.1%. In Iowa, it was 91.3%. In the District of Columbia, it was 69.3%.

Calculated in a more inclusive manner that counts people continuing to work towards a high school diploma after five years, or earning a high school diploma in an alternative program or with a GED, the overall national high school dropout rate was 6.1% for the same year, down more or less steadily from 27.2% in 1960, 15.0% in 1970, 14.1% in 1980, 12.1% in 1990, 10.9% in 2000, and 7.4% in 2010.

The current dropout rate (with the more inclusive measure) is 5.8% for white males, 6.2% for black males, 10.1% for Hispanic males, 4.6% for white females, 4.3% for black females, and 7.0% for Hispanic females.

Private v. Public Education

Table from CAPE.

Private K-12 education peaked around 1960 at 13.9% from which it declined to a 2014 low of 9.7%, and was lowest around 1920 at 7.3%.

About 10.2% of K-12 students attend private schools, 76% of which are religious (about 7.8% of the total) and 24% of which are secular (about 2.4% of the total). The nonsectarian, secular Montessori, Friends, Jewish, Islamic, and conservative Christian share have increased over the last 14 years, while the Roman Catholic, Adventist and other Protestant shares have declined.

The peak in private K-12 education around 1960 reflects resistance to school desegregation (Brown v. Board of Education was decided in 1954), which gradually waned, in part, due to growing comfort with desegregated schools and, in part, because de facto segregation based upon school attendance boundaries combined with white flight to the suburbs, tracking within schools, and school choice programs, provided alternatives that parents could find to circumvent school desegregation.

An older colleague at work, is his 60s, went to a private school in the District of Columbia at a time when most private schools in the District were not yet desegregated. 

The increase in non-sectarian and secular Montessori enrollment is largely a function of increased availability of voucher and charter school options in urban areas. Episcopal and Friends affiliated schools have draws similar to high prestige non-sectarian private schools, with Episcopal enrollment actually declining about 16% in absolute terms, and and the apparent 40% growth in Friends education in absolute terms probably partially being a function of rounding errors, although voucher programs may have helped in these cases as well.

The near doubling of the market share of Jewish affiliated K-12 enrollment, which is still a 50% increase in absolute terms, is probably largely attributable to the availability of voucher programs in areas with large Jewish populations (mostly in the Northeast Corridor), although increased concerns about anti-semitism and a desire to maintain a stronger Jewish identity could also play a part.

The increase in the Conservative Christian share largely reflects a steady enrollment in the face of a declining share of students attending private schools. There may also have been a fair amount of rebranding from Baptist and Calvinist to Conservative Christian.

In raw numbers, as opposed to percentage share figures, Roman Catholic education declined about 40% from 1992 (well after the peak) to 2016 and has probably declined further since then.

Declining Catholic and Protestant other than Conservative Christian enrollment largely reflects a shift to public schools and nonsectarian schools by parents who were primarily seeking to avoid what they perceived as "bad" desegregated public schools options, rather than because they were actively seeking religious instructions.

The growth in Islamic K-12 education reflects both a growing Muslim population in the U.S., mostly due to immigration, but in part, also due to conversion, and the availability of voucher programs.