State Plates
The Minnesota Education Plate
In Minnesota, education plates turn on attainment — the credentials a population carries. This plate places Black Minnesota in the national education geography: the benchmarks below are the published national attainment figures for Black adults, and Minnesota's distribution figures — 495,000 Black residents, 7 percent of the state — give the scale of the community those national patterns describe within the state's borders.
The National Pattern
In Minnesota, that national attainment pattern meets a state school and college system of its own, and the table below fixes the population it describes. For Black adults aged 25 and over, the Census Bureau's surveys record a population that has reached near-parity in high school completion while remaining well behind national rates in college completion: about 89 percent hold a high school diploma or higher, and about 25 percent — one in four — hold a bachelor's degree or higher. Held against the national midpoint, Minnesota's own rows say how its households stand.
In Minnesota, that national attainment pattern meets a state school and college system of its own, and the table below fixes the population it describes. At the first step, high school completion, Black adults stand at about 89 percent, close to the national figure of about 90 percent — a convergence that is historically recent and remarkable, given that as late as the mid-twentieth century a majority of Black adults had not completed high school. At the third step, the bachelor's degree, the Black figure of about 25 percent separates from the national figure of about 36 percent and the non-Hispanic White figure of about 39 percent. Held against the national ladder, Minnesota's own rows say where its attainment stands.
In Minnesota, that national attainment pattern meets a state school and college system of its own, and the table below fixes the population it describes. Placed alongside the other groups the Census Bureau reports, the bachelor's-degree ordering reads: Asian adults at roughly 57 percent, non-Hispanic White adults at 39 percent, all adults at 36 percent, Black adults at 25 percent, and Hispanic adults at about 21 percent. Against the national ladder, the rows below place Minnesota's attainment.
Reading This Plate
How to read this plate: the state rows are the published census figures for Minnesota; the benchmark rows are the published national attainment record, labeled as benchmarks. In Minnesota, attainment is a stock built over decades, so the national pattern changes slowly — and the size of the state's Black adult population is what turns that pattern into local classrooms, colleges, and workforces.
The Population Behind the Plate
For Minnesota, the national attainment figures are context; the state's own distribution, tabled below, is the plate's subject. Minnesota holds about 495,000 Black residents — Black alone or in combination — roughly one in twelve of its people, with Black alone at about 399,000, or 7 percent. Minnesota's Black population is a study in juxtaposition: an old, small native-born community centered in the Twin Cities; the largest Somali community in the United States, built by refugee resettlement since the 1990s; and outcome indicators that rank, in study after study, among the widest Black-white gaps in the nation despite the state's overall prosperity rankings. It is in the rows below — Minnesota's own — that the general material becomes a specific place.
For Minnesota, the national attainment figures are context; the state's own distribution, tabled below, is the plate's subject. A state that ranks at or near the top in overall income, education, and health records Black outcomes that rank near the bottom in several national comparisons: Black homeownership in the Twin Cities in the mid-twenties percent range — among the lowest of any metro in this reference — against a state White rate in the high seventies; Black median household income at roughly half the state's overall figure; educational proficiency gaps in the state assessment data among the nation's widest. The comparison the plate invites is therefore two-sided: the national midpoint on one side, Minnesota's households on the other.
This plate takes up its subject directly: The Minnesota Education Plate. A note on this plate's figures, stated once and plainly: Black share of the state population (alone): 7%; Black share, alone or in combination: 8.7%; Black residents, alone or in combination: 495,000. For Minnesota, the figures are the argument; the text only keeps them in order.
How this plate is read, for Minnesota: begin with the map, whose shading bands the published Black share into the legend's five classes, then turn to the table, which states the measures in figures — Black share of the state population (alone): 7%; Black share, alone or in combination: 8.7%. In Minnesota, the two presentations are one record in two forms, and a reader who checks one against the other has the plate's whole method in hand.
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Black share of the state population (alone) | 7% |
| Black share, alone or in combination | 8.7% |
| Black residents, alone or in combination | 495,000 |
| United States benchmark — of Black adults hold a high school diploma or higher | 89% |
| United States benchmark — of Black adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher | 1 in 4 |
Source: National Center for Education Statistics; U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey educational attainment tables. Method: Figures are drawn from the published federal sources named on this page, for the geography named; tile shading bands the published Black population share into the five legend classes. Counts are rounded as published by the source agency, and national benchmark rows are labeled with the basis they are published on.