Life After High School 2019

In order to provide context for the economic and educational data offered in this report, it’s first important to establish some facts about the demographic makeup of New Orleans’ residents as a whole.

The total population of Orleans Parish grew to 400,106 people, an increase of 2%, from 2017 to 2018. As of 2018, youth aged 15-24 accounted for nearly 12% of the entire population. This age cohort includes a greater proportion of individuals who are Black than the city’s population as a whole.

Overall, 59.0% of the city’s population was Black, while 30.8% was White, 4.2% was Hispanic, and 3.0% was Asian; 52.6% of the city’s residents are female and 47.4% are male.

As of 2017, a greater percentage (35%) of residents had at least a bachelor’s degree or additional college degree than the rest of Louisiana (23%) or the United States (30%) as a whole. New Orleans also had a smaller percentage of its population with a high school diploma or less, at 39%, compared to 50% for Louisiana, and 42% for the U.S. However, large inequities in educational attainment are visible along the lines of race: 67.4% of the White population holds at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to 22.6% of Black residents.