Countering a longtime national trend, African-American students at UC Riverside have a higher graduation rate than students from any other group, recently released data shows.
Seventy-five percent of black students who entered UCR in fall 2002 graduated by 2008, compared with 67.5 percent of all students. UC Riverside is the only one of the 10 University of California campuses where black student graduation rates were higher than average.
"This is the first time we've seen this super success of African-American students," university spokeswoman Marcia McQuern said. "We don't really know why it spiked this year."
The graduation rates are compiled by the UC system.
The gap in graduation rates between black and other students has been narrower at UCR for years. In at least one other year, 2004, the black graduation rate was also above average, but only narrowly. Last year, black students' graduation rate was 5 points below the overall rate.
BEATS NATIONAL STATS
Nationally, only about 38 percent of black students at public four-year universities graduate within six years, compared to nearly 54 percent of all students, according to 2007 data from the National Center for Education Statistics.