(WNYC) A new national study may yield some clues about how immigrant and second generation Americans differ from all other undergraduates, and from each other, when they get to college.
The study (PDF) for the U.S. government's National Center for Education Statistics examined students from six states including New York, where 35 percent of college students were either first- or second-generation immigrants.
The foreign-born population in the U.S tripled between 1970 and 2007. A little more than a quarter of all adults aged 25 and older had bachelor's degrees in 2007, regardless of whether or not they were foreign born. But 44 percent of foreign-born? adults had enrolled in college compared to 56 percent of the U.S. born population.
Among undergraduates who were born abroad or whose parents were immigrants, the dominant ethnic groups are Hispanics and Asians.