Only 4% of American Blacks Qualified for College

Image Source

If one assumes that a person needs an IQ of 115 to qualify for a rigorous university degree, roughly 4% of American blacks would qualify.

The average IQ of American blacks is 85, with a standard deviation of 15. (you will have to shift the curve one standard deviation to the left) An IQ score of 115 is 2 standard deviations above the African American IQ mean. A brief glance at the diagram above (shifted 1 STDV leftward) reveals that over 96% of American blacks would find themselves below the 115 IQ level, leaving only about 4% qualified to meet the challenge.

A look at recent ACT scores of US high school graduates suggests that only 23% of all US HS graduates are qualified to succeed in college with at least a "C" average. The study included graduates of all races and ethnicities, including high scoring East Asians and Jews of European ancestry.If one looks at the SubSaharan African population, with an average population IQ of roughly 70, it is clear that the proportion qualified to succeed in college would be less than 1%. Closer to 0.1%. Consider that, when you foresee the longterm future of SubSaharan Africa without assistance from China, Europe, or the Anglosphere.

IQ is less important overall than Executive Function (EF), for life success. But both qualities are highly heritable, and the most potent training window for EF has passed by the age of 7. The best training windows for other cognitive traits that affect one's IQ score have not been precisely determined. In other words, if the best educational systems in the world neglect the training of their young, what expectations can you have for African schools?

Many communities of American blacks have become pockets of the third world, with all the crime, corruption, and inherent dysfunctionality that is included. Not only are heritable IQs and EFs lower than in surrounding communities, educational systems and societal role models and institutions are also deficient -- so that training cannot make up for whatever inherited deficiencies are present. A large proportion of students will never graduate HS, and of those who do, a very low percentage will go to college. If society decides to promote these HS graduates to schools above their level of preparation and innate talent, failure is virtually guaranteed.

A multicultural society containing population groups of varying talent and functionality, will always suffer from civil dissatisfaction and disorder. How the society reacts to the inherent inequality and resulting dissatisfaction depends upon the society's own level of wisdom and maturity. Preferential treatment and promotion beyond qualification is one of the least wise and mature approaches.

Addendum: Can the average IQ of Subsaharan Africans really be as low as 70?

Critics of the finding that the average African IQ is 70 say that it simply must be wrong. They insist that biased testing procedures must have been used, even though dozens of separate studies have corroborated the results from East, West, Central, and Southern Africa. For Example, one 1992 study carried out for the World Bank reported that a random sample of 1,639 adolescents in the West African country of Ghana had an average IQ of 60.

In 1998, I went to Johannesburg, South Africa, to initiate a 5-year series of IQ studies in the university system to determine whether such a low IQ was accurate. I, too, wondered how well all the previous data had been collected, if sufficient care were taken in giving instructions, ensuring motivation, having a quiet room for testing, or giving enough time to complete the tests.

First, I contacted psychologists in the Faculty of Education at the University of the Witwatersrand (all anti-apartheid liberals) and together we tested hundreds of students of African, East Indian, White, and East Asian backgrounds, along with those of mixed ancestry, under optimal testing procedures, using culture reduced tests. We used a large, quiet, well-lit, well-ventilated examination room with desks spaced far enough apart to prevent copying or feeling crowded. As I walked up and down the aisles watching the students diligently at work, it was plain to see they were well-motivated.

We used the Raven’s Matrices, one of the best known, well researched, and most widely used of all the culture-reduced tests. Consisting of 60 diagrammatic puzzles, each with a missing part that the test taker attempts to identify from several choices, it is an excellent measure of the non-verbal component of general intelligence. Typically, the test is so easy for university students that they do it in less than 20 minutes. We set no time limit for the test. All those being tested were allowed to complete it.

We found African university students averaged an IQ of 84. In some studies, by other researchers, they have scored lower (IQ = 77). In still others of our studies, highly-selected engineering students who took math and science courses in high school scored higher (IQ = 103).

Assuming that, like university students elsewhere, the African university students on average score 15 points above the general population, the African general population average of about 70 would appear to be corroborated. _VDare