California’s Asian American education success story leaves some communities far behind

Asian Americans as a whole have some of the highest college attainment rates in California, but a new statewide report found that many Southeast Asian and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) communities remain excluded from those gains. Fewer than 30% of Cambodian, Hmong and Laotian adults hold bachelor’s degrees, while NHPI adults have a college attainment rate of just 22%, according to findings released by Campaign for College Opportunity and the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs.

Educational attainment varies dramatically across California’s Asian American and NHPI communities. While 61% of working-age Asian American adults hold a bachelor’s degree or higher, attainment falls below 30% among Cambodian, Hmong and Laotian adults. Among NHPI communities, bachelor’s degree attainment ranges from 17% among Samoan adults to 22% among Tongan and Fijian adults.

Asian American students posted California’s highest four-year high school graduation rate at 93% during the 2024-25 school year, compared with 86% for NHPI students. The gap widens when measuring completion of A-G coursework required for admission to the University of California and California State University systems. Seventy-two percent of Asian American students completed the college preparatory sequence, compared with 38% of NHPI students.

The report further notes that post-1965 immigration reforms prioritized highly educated and skilled professionals from countries such as India, China and the Philippines, while many Southeast Asian communities arrived in the U.S. as refugees fleeing war and political upheaval. Researchers also found that about one in five Southeast Asian and NHPI children in California grows up in poverty, a condition closely linked to educational opportunity and long-term attainment.

The sharpest disparities appear in access to California’s most selective public universities. Asian American students account for 31% of undergraduate enrollment across the University of California system, while NHPI students make up just 0.1% of UC undergraduates despite California being home to the nation’s largest NHPI population.

Only 3% of NHPI first-time freshmen statewide enroll at a UC campus, compared with 21% of Asian American freshmen. NHPI students are also nearly four times more likely than Asian American students to attend a for-profit college, according to the report.

Within California’s community college system, 40% of Asian American students completed a degree, credential or transfer goal within six years, compared with 23% of NHPI students. No NHPI subgroup recorded a higher six-year completion rate than any individual Asian American subgroup included in the analysis.

California’s Asian American and NHPI population includes more than 20 ethnic groups with distinct educational outcomes, yet many public datasets continue to group them together. Researchers contend that doing so can make it harder for policymakers and institutions to identify where support is most needed.

Campaign for College Opportunity and CAPIAA are urging state leaders to expand the use of disaggregated data, increase access to college preparatory coursework and strengthen transfer pathways from community colleges to four-year universities. Additional recommendations include boosting financial aid participation, increasing representation of AANHPI faculty and administrators and supporting legislation that would establish California’s first Asian American and NHPI-serving institution designation.

“Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students are treated as a monolithic group,” report co-author Alexis Takagi told The Sacramento Bee. “There’s a prevalent narrative around Asian Americans having uniform success. But when you look at the data, we see there are stark disparities across the board in completion rates, transfer rates and even who’s enrolling in higher education.” Takagi said communities that remain hidden within aggregate data risk being overlooked when institutions and policymakers make decisions about resources and support.