No one of the Negro institutions for higher learning has as yet become a fully equipped university. No one of the institutions maintains a graduate school. Howard University is the only one that has even started graduate work.[46] The real influence of the college has been to prepare men to be leaders in education, as may be witnessed by the fact that out of the 5,000 Negro college graduates in the United States 54 per cent are teaching, while 20 per cent are preaching.[47] The following table shows the number of college graduates by decades:[48]
| Year | No. of Grads. | Year | No. of Grads. |
| 1820-29 | 3 | 1870-79 | 313 |
| 1830-39 | — | 1880-89 | 738 |
| 1840-49 | 7 | 1892-99 | 1,126 |
| 1850-59 | 12 | 1900-09 | 1,610 |
| 1860-69 | 44 | ||
| Total | 3,856 |
The distribution of the college Negro is indicated in the following:[49]
| Districts | No. of Graduates |
| New England States | 16 |
| So-Northern Atlantic States | 42 |
| No-Southern Atlantic States | 92 |
| So-Southern Atlantic States | 276 |
| E-Northern Central States | 61 |
| W-Northern Central States | 47 |
| E-Southern Central States | 141 |
| W-Southern Central States | 99 |
| Rocky Mountain States | 2 |
| Basin and Plateau States | 3 |
| Pacific States | 3 |
| Outside U. S. | 2 |
| Unknown | 18 |
| Total | 802 |
103 of these graduates were born in the North, 65 or 63 per cent of whom remained in the North and 35 or 34 per cent migrated to the South; 682 of these were born in the South, 102 or 15 per cent of whom went to the North, and 563 or 82.5 per cent remained in the South. This shows that the tendency of the college graduate is to remain in the South where he is most needed.
Of the graduates of 107 colleges which are not Negro institutions 79.2 per cent or 549 have been men, and 20.8 per cent or 144 have been women. Of 2,964 graduates of 34 Negro colleges, 82.7 per cent have been men and 17.3 have been women.[50] This difference may be due to a greater economic standard of the Negro in the North, since the colleges admitting Negroes which are not Negro institutions would be in the North, and to the fact that more Negroes would be located near educational institutions in the North than they would be in the South.
From another report the average age for the women graduates was 21-1/3 years, and the average for the men was 22-3/16 years. There seems to be a tendency of the age to increase, as shown by the following:[51]
| 1880-1890 | the average age was 21 years for men and women. |
| 1890-1900 | the average age was 22 years for men and women. |
| 1900-1910 | the average age was 22-4/10 years for men and women. |
Of the 24 graduates reported 16 were under 35, and one was over 50.