A first job out of college either sets a Black or Latino college student up, or it sets them back. There's not much middle ground. This is where that gap starts, and what it costs.
Share in a degree-level job ten years after graduation
Earnings premium over a high school graduate
Median household wealth, college graduates
Change in median household wealth over 24 years, college-educated households
Sources
Strada Institute for the Future of Work and Burning Glass Institute, Talent Disrupted, 2024. “Started underemployed” shown as the share no longer underemployed at ten years. Strada Institute for the Future of Work and Burning Glass Institute, Talent Disrupted, 2024. Boston Indicators, Racial Wealth Equity Chartbook, 2023, analysis of the 2019 Survey of Consumer Finances. Mann, Meschede, Shapiro and Taylor, “Family Achievements? How a College Degree Accumulates Wealth for Whites and Not for Blacks,” Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review, 2017. PSID panel, 1989 to 2013, a period that includes the 2008 foreclosure crisis. Study compares Black and white households only.
The vast majority of graduates who start in a role that requires their degree are still in one ten years later. Those who start underemployed mostly stay underemployed, and the degree returns a quarter of what it should.
For our Scholars, the margin is thinner still. Studies of college-educated households find Black and Latino graduates hold far less wealth, and the gap widens over a career rather than closing. White graduates are about twice as likely to get help paying for college and more than three times as likely to get help buying a home. Black graduates are more likely to be sending money the other way, supporting parents and family on the same paycheck.
So an average job isn't average for our Scholars. For a graduate with family wealth behind them, $50,000 is a start: there's a floor underneath if it doesn't work out. For a graduate whose salary is supporting other people and has nothing behind it, the same $50,000 is where they stay.
Against a $50,000 national median for new graduates. We don't count jobs. We count degree-level roles, above a $60,000 floor, with a real career track.
New graduate median: U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey.
About 100 million Americans, roughly one in three people in this country, face structural barriers to building wealth. The result: lost talent, stalled innovation, and slower economic growth for everyone. A core reason: the bridge from college to career has collapsed. Roughly 60% of Black and Latino college graduates are unemployed, or underemployed, a year after graduation.
Underemployed means working in a job that doesn't actually require a four-year degree, and it's a bad place to land: those graduates earn a third less than peers who start in a job that requires a degree, and most are working jobs that only require a high school education. What's worse, once someone starts there, it's hard to get out. 73% of graduates who start out underemployed are still underemployed a decade later.
U.S. Census Bureau, Vintage 2024 population estimates; Strada Institute for the Future of Work and Burning Glass Institute, Talent Disrupted, February 2024
Greenwood Project rebuilds the bridge from college to career. We prepare Scholars to compete for high-trajectory roles, the ones with real pay and real upside. Where a Scholar starts sets the trajectory for their entire career. That starting point is what we work on getting right.
Greenwood counts only high-trajectory roles: degree-level, a $60,000 floor, and real upside. The national bars count any degree-requiring job. Ours does not count one below $60,000.
Strada Institute for the Future of Work and Burning Glass Institute, Talent Disrupted, 2024; Bureau of Labor Statistics
New-graduate first-year median, Census ACS; Greenwood cohort outcomes
Our Scholars earn their place at the world's most competitive firms.
Year after year.
Steven S., Investment Banking Academy. Earned a summer internship at Apollo Global Management, a firm with no Greenwood relationship. While there, he entered Apollo's intern competition to pitch a nonprofit to the Apollo Opportunity Foundation. He pitched Greenwood. His team won. Apollo gave us $50,000.
“I wouldn't be anywhere near the position I am without the support of the GP Staff and Community.”Steven S.
Frankie G. The first in his family to attend college. A standout athlete until his father was seriously injured on the job, when he left every activity to work two part-time jobs and help support his family. A year and a half of community college, then a transfer to the University of Illinois Gies College of Business, where he graduates in December with a finance degree. An internship at Wind Point Partners, then a summer as an analyst at Deutsche Bank in New York. Deutsche Bank has since offered him a full-time role.
“This literally changed my life. … How can I be that person who helped me along the way.”Frankie G.
Hayes B., Cohort 2018. Now an Associate in Investment Banking at Goldman Sachs.
“It's an understatement to say it's a long way from the South Side of Chicago, where I grew up, to Wall Street. But as a Greenwood Project Scholar, I learned about career opportunities in financial services, gained skills to succeed in a highly competitive internship, and built a network of professionals whom I still rely on today.”Hayes B.