Household Expenditures on Higher Ed by Ethnicity

Asian households spend $644 annually on higher education, the most of any racial or ethnic group, and African-American households spend the least, at $125, according to a new paper from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
The paper finds that groups of different race and ethnicity spend “vastly different amounts” on higher education, driven primarily by their likelihood of going to college and socioeconomic factors. Hispanic households spend the second-least, at $177 annually, and white households spend more than double that, at $409 a year. The average annual expenditure is $357.

But when comparing families with similar household incomes and parental education levels, regardless of race, the higher education expenditure levels “are essentially the same,” the paper says. It includes data from 2008 through 2010.