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# Recent Immigrants Are Better-Educated Than Ever Before

By Alexander Arnon

In 2015, the government issued 3.5 million allowances to stay in the United States for longer than a short visit. That figure is up slightly from 2007 when 3.0 million permissions were issued. However, over the same time period, there was rapid change to the characteristics of newly arrived immigrants.

From 1997 to 2007, a newly arrived adult immigrant to the United States was about as likely to have a college degree as to have not finished high school. During that period, each group accounted for about one third of new arrivals (including both legal and unauthorized immigrants). Over the decade since 2007, those odds changed dramatically. The share of recent immigrants with a college degree grew by nearly 50 percent, while the share without a high school degree fell by a similar proportion (see Figure 1). By 2017, a recently arrived immigrant was almost three times as likely to have a college degree as to have not finished high school.

Source: PWBM calculations based on Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement, 1997-2017.

The rising share of immigrants who have a college degree is closely related to another shift occurring over the same period: the sharp decline in immigration from Mexico. From 1997 to 2017, the share of recent immigrants who were born in Mexico plunged from around 30 percent to just under 12 percent (see Figure 2). As immigration from Mexico has fallen, Asia and Africa have grown in importance as sources of immigrants to the US. In particular, the share of recent immigrants who were born in India rose from less than 4 percent in 1997 to more than 12 percent in 2017—a larger share than Mexico--while Africa’s share doubled from 3.5 percent to 7 percent.

Source: PWBM calculations based on Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement, 1997-2017.

The shift in the origins of recent immigrants is one reason for the rise in the share with a college degree. In both 1997 and 2017, immigrants from India were the most likely to have a bachelor’s or advanced degree (see Figure 3). By contrast, immigrants from Mexico over the last two decades generally had little formal schooling and were among the least likely to have finished high school or college.

Source: PWBM calculations based on Current Population Survey Annual Social and Economic Supplement, 1997-2017.

However, the shifting origins of new immigrants do not fully explain the rise in the college-educated share. Across all countries and regions of birth, immigrants arriving in the US today are more likely to have a college degree than twenty years ago.

In a future post, we will study each country or region’s contribution to the rise in the share of immigrants with a college degree. We will also examine the proportions attributable to changes in the origins of new immigrants versus rising educational attainment within a country or region’s immigrant population.

[Updated 4/6/18 to reflect subsequent research on the rise of the share of immmigrants with a college degree]

  Year,No high school degree,Bachelor's or advanced degree
1997,31.67951,30.32166
1998,31.19011,30.68057
1999,31.01283,33.01889
2000,31.18653,31.37709
2001,31.90356,33.70778
2002,31.34068,33.62067
2003,31.83888,34.32307
2004,32.03357,31.75735
2005,32.48421,31.92799
2006,32.77914,31.08915
2007,34.88388,32.65837
2008,30.60129,33.69902
2009,29.45883,36.10853
2010,26.98403,35.27859
2011,23.42236,39.98163
2012,21.45318,42.14853
2013,22.11701,42.25308
2014,23.72578,42.80817
2015,21.33446,46.04929
2016,17.70347,46.41018
2017,17.43114,47.85938

  Country,1997,2017
Mexico,28.624689,11.641771
Caribbean,8.912451,11.146814
Central America,4.966686,7.988228
South America,7.030201,8.84215
Europe,14.241299,8.909118
Africa,3.722301,7.166386
India,3.839187,12.69589
China,5.848743,8.014147
Rest of Asia,15.945918,14.428361
Other,6.868524,9.167134

  Country,1997,2017
Mexico,2.323123,11.041379
Caribbean,3.263339,15.912218
Central America,2.60609,9.762253
South America,17.302869,33.871311
Europe,32.576803,51.734963
Africa,25.728215,28.947503
India,52.624771,70.836971
China,29.123229,49.197913
Rest of Asia,28.031682,30.58274
Other,25.491035,33.277201