Misleading Statistics

Xanh Tran

ASA 002 –A01

Response #1: UC Davis Facts

Misleading Statistics

                The table and pie charts in this document display the proudly sounded diversity of the UC Davis campus. UC Davis has one of the highest populations of Asian students in the nation, a whooping 40%, 7% more than the white 33%.  However, after analyzing the data presented, one will find that those figures are rather deceptive.

                That 40% is only representative of the Asians and Asian-Americans pursuing an undergraduate degree. Out of the entire UC Davis student population, Asians make up only 35.1%, while whites make up 36.6%, making the former actually a minority and the latter a majority. This is because only 12.6% of the graduate student population is Asian, and 24.9 of the Professional, Health Science, and Self-Supportive field is Asian. The decreased presence of Asians in these two groups is reflective of the difficulty those with Asian backgrounds face in pursuing higher education past a bachelor’s degree, a product of institutionalized and historical oppression, present today in academic, social, economic, and political forces.

                To break it down ever further, something else to look into is the disparity within the Asian community of UC Davis students and question, what are the causes of the differences in representation between Asian ethnicities, and why are some groups clearly more represented than others?  For example, why are 42.9% of all Asians on campus Chinese/Chinese-American, while only 1.0% identify as Pacific Islander, an entire set of ethnic groups? And who are these “other Asian[s]” who make up only 3.0% of all UC Davis students? 

A graph depicting the ethnic breakdown of UC Davis graduate students 2009-2011.