Some campuses may seem like they're close to eliminating the gap between underrepresented minority students (which the Cal State system says are Black, Latino and Native American students) and their White, Asian and other student counterparts. Those two groups are what the Cal State uses to track its progress of closing the graduation rate achievement gap by 2025. But the Cal States graduate Black students at lower rates than other underrepresented minorities. In numerous instances, the differences are dramatic, a CalMatters analysis shows. The systemwide average is a 19.6 percentage point gap between Black and non-underrepresented minority students. The gap between underrepresented and non-underrepresented minorities is 12.4 percentage points. Campuses as Fresno, Northridge, Humboldt and Chico all have Black-non-URM gaps of 20 or more points. Chico State has the widest gap in 2021 -- 31.2 points.
Chart by Jeremia Kimelman, analysis by Mikhail Zinshteyn
*The Cal State system doesn't publish graduation rates for Black students at the Maritime campus because too few attend the school as first-time students.
Graduation-rate data is for 2021 and represents first-time students who began their studies in 2015 (six-year graduation rate)