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