Education and the Model Minority Myth

Updated July 13, 2025 | Posted August 23, 2023
By the Annie E. Casey Foundation
A young Asian girl sits at a desk. She's sitting turned toward the camera, smiling, holding a pen, preparing to write in a notebook.

The label mod­el minor­i­ty” has been used for decades. It per­pet­u­ates a detri­men­tal stereo­type that Asian Amer­i­cans (AA) are more aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly and finan­cial­ly high achiev­ing than oth­er racial and eth­nic groups. This has mul­ti­ple dam­ag­ing effects:

  • The expec­ta­tion from teach­ers, peers and oth­ers that one is aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly high achiev­ing can cre­ate psy­cho­log­i­cal stress and pres­sure. Young peo­ple who intense­ly inter­nal­ize the mod­el minor­i­ty myth are espe­cial­ly vul­ner­a­ble to its harm­ful effects at this for­ma­tive stage of life. 2021 study in the Jour­nal of Youth and Ado­les­cence also notes that it is dehu­man­iz­ing as it pun­ish­es those who devi­ate from the stereo­type and the nar­row def­i­n­i­tion of success.”
  • Oth­er stud­ies have found that the​mod­el minor­i­ty stereo­type — which can affect Pacif­ic Islanders, too — has many com­plex edu­ca­tion­al, social and men­tal health impacts. For instance, this stereo­type can result in young people:
    • Hav­ing their aca­d­e­m­ic needs ignored or feel­ing stig­ma if they ask for help, due to assump­tions that they are mod­el students;
    • Becom­ing iso­lat­ed or exclud­ed from peers and sources of sup­port; and
    • Feel­ing anx­i­ety out of a fear of not liv­ing up to expectations.

Edu­ca­tion Data on Asian Amer­i­can and Native Hawai­ian and Pacif­ic Islander Students

Read on for dis­ag­gre­gat­ed stats on the expe­ri­ences of AA and Native Hawai­ian and Pacif­ic Islander (NHPI) students.

Young Adults With­out A High School Degree

The lat­est data from the Nation­al Cen­ter for Edu­ca­tion Sta­tis­tics show that while the share of all AA young peo­ple ages 18 to 24 with­out a high school degree was 7% in 2022, below the nation­al aver­age of 12%, this fig­ure was 23% for Thai young adults and 12% for both Cam­bo­di­an and Burmese young adults. These data reveal wide vari­a­tion in high school com­ple­tion among AA pop­u­la­tions. For Pacif­ic Islanders, the share of young adults who had not com­plet­ed high school was 18%, six per­cent­age points above the U.S aver­age (this sta­tis­tic was not dis­ag­gre­gat­ed by NHPI population).

School Dis­ci­pline

Puni­tive or unfair school dis­ci­pline prac­tices, such as dis­pro­por­tion­ate sus­pen­sions from school, are asso­ci­at­ed with poor stu­dent out­comes like drop­ping out of school. A 2022 Learn­ing Pol­i­cy Insti­tute report found that Pacif­ic Islander stu­dents, specif­i­cal­ly, were sus­pend­ed at a high­er rate (4.3%) than AA (0.9%) and white (2.7%) stu­dents. This is con­sis­tent with find­ings from oth­er research. (While these data were not dis­ag­gre­gat­ed by NHPI pop­u­la­tion, lit­tle nation­al atten­tion has focused on school dis­ci­pline for NHPI students.)

Eng­lish Proficiency

A 2024 Fact­sheet by AAPI Data found that around 4 in 10 Amer­i­cans of Bhutanese (36%) and Burmese (40%) descent ages 5 and old­er were pro­fi­cient in Eng­lish, com­pared to near­ly three-quar­ters (72%) of all Asian Amer­i­cans. Eng­lish pro­fi­cien­cy rates were also rel­a­tive­ly low among Viet­namese (52%), Bangladeshi (56%) and Chi­nese (58%) Amer­i­cans. A recent Pew Research arti­cle not­ed a key dis­tinc­tion in Eng­lish flu­en­cy rates between U.S.-born Asian Amer­i­cans (95% pro­fi­cient) and Asian immi­grants who under­stand­ably have a much low­er rate (59%).

Among the NHPI pop­u­la­tion ages 5 and old­er, the vast major­i­ty (88%) are pro­fi­cient in Eng­lish, although more than 1 in 10 still have lan­guage access needs, accord­ing to AAPI Data.

Accord­ing to a 2024 sum­ma­ry from the Nation­al Cen­ter for Edu­ca­tion Sta­tis­tics, Asian stu­dents com­prised 10% of those clas­si­fied as Eng­lish Learn­ers in pub­lic ele­men­tary and sec­ondary schools in fall 2021, and Pacif­ic Islander stu­dents com­prised near­ly 1%. This rep­re­sents 500,800 AA stu­dents and 33,400 NHPI stu­dents — almost 1 in 5 of all AA and NHPI stu­dents. Among the 15 most com­mon home lan­guages spo­ken by Eng­lish Learn­ers: Chi­nese, Viet­namese, Hmong, Urdu, Kore­an and Tagalog.

Col­lege Attain­ment Among Adults

As shown in the table below, a 2025 AAPI Data guide on edu­ca­tion found that about three-fourths (74%) of all AA adults ages 25 and old­er have attend­ed some col­lege or have obtained a bachelor’s degree or high­er, com­pared to 63% nation­wide. The same is true for only a quar­ter (26%) of Bhutanese adults, just over a third (35%) of Burmese and less than half of Laot­ian (45%), Cam­bo­di­an (46%) and Mien (47%) adults

Table 1: Asian Amer­i­can Col­lege Attain­ment for Ages 25 and Old­er, by Population

Pop­u­la­tion

Com­plet­ed Some College

Bach­e­lor’s or High­er Degree

U.S. Aver­age 28% 35%
Asian Amer­i­can Average 17% 57%
Asian Indi­an 9% 77%
Bangladeshi 15% 50%
Bhutanese 11% 15%
Burmese

12%

23%
Cam­bo­di­an 24% 22%
Chi­nese 13% 58%
Fil­ipino 28% 52%
Hmong 30% 25%
Indone­sian 23% 53%
Japan­ese 25% 55%
Kaza­kh 7% 69%
Kore­an 18% 61%
Laot­ian 26% 19%
Malaysian 15% 62%
Mien 26% 21%
Mon­go­lian 20% 67%
Nepalese 14% 50%
Pak­istani 16% 60%
Sikh 11% 55%
Sri Lankan 17% 60%
Tai­wanese 9% 82%
Thai 20% 48%
Viet­namese 22% 34%
Uzbek 8% 63%
Sur­vey via iPUMS, from By the Num­bers: Edu­ca­tion, 2025. Source: AAPI Data analy­sis of the 2023 5‑year Amer­i­can Community

While the share of AA adults with a bachelor’s degree or high­er is sub­stan­tial­ly above the U.S. aver­age (57% vs. 35%, respec­tive­ly), this fig­ure ranges wide­ly among AA groups — from 15% to 82%. Those of Tai­wanese and Asian Indi­an descent are the most like­ly to attain col­lege degrees, while those of Bhutanese, Laot­ian, Mien, Cam­bo­di­an, Burmese and Hmong descent are the least likely.

Among NHPI adults 25 and old­er, just under 1 in 5 (19%) have a bachelor’s degree or more, 16 per­cent­age points below the nation­al aver­age. As shown in Table 2, AAPI Data’s 2025 analy­sis also found that cer­tain NHPI groups — includ­ing Mar­shallese, Gua­man­ian, Chuukese and Samoan adults — had even low­er col­lege attain­ment rates than the NHPI aver­age. The high­est edu­ca­tion­al attain­ment rates were among Chamor­ro and Fijian adults.

Table 2: Native Hawai­ian and Pacif­ic Islander Col­lege Attain­ment Among Ages 25 and Old­er, by Population

Pop­u­la­tion

Com­plet­ed Some College

Bach­e­lor’s or High­er Degree

U.S. Aver­age28%35%
NHPI Aver­age33%19%
Chamor­ro
35%
23%
Chuukese
41%
16%
Fijian
33%
22%
Gua­man­ian

43%

11%
Hawai­ian
32%
19%
Mar­shallese
36%
4%
Samoan
34%
17%
Ton­gan
29%
20%
Com­mu­ni­ty Sur­vey via iPUMS, in By the Num­bers: Edu­ca­tion, 2025. Source: AAPI Data analy­sis of the 2023 5‑year Amer­i­can Com­mu­ni­ty Survey

Using Dis­ag­gre­gat­ed Data and an Inter­sec­tion­al Lens to Under­stand Stu­dent Needs

These find­ings illus­trate the impor­tance of dis­ag­gre­gat­ing stu­dent data to under­stand the chal­lenges fac­ing dif­fer­ent AA and NHPI groups — a crit­i­cal step in order to strength­en sys­tems to sup­port their edu­ca­tion­al suc­cess. In addi­tion to dis­ag­gre­gat­ing data by racial group, experts rec­om­mend fur­ther exam­in­ing data by oth­er fac­tors, such as gen­der, lan­guage and socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus, which can shed more light on stu­dents’ unique needs. This inter­sec­tion­al approach to under­stand­ing NHPI and AA stu­dents allows for a more nuanced under­stand­ing of their var­ied expe­ri­ences and can help edu­ca­tion lead­ers effec­tive­ly tar­get resources and ser­vices to meet their needs.

Read the Rest of Our Series on AA and NHPI Young People

Access Relat­ed Data and Pol­i­cy Information

More resources from the Foundation: 

Addi­tion­al data, research and pol­i­cy resources about AA and NHPI populations:

A Note About Language

We use the term Asian Amer­i­cans” in this post to refer to both Asian immi­grants and U.S. cit­i­zens of Asian descent, as the term reflects the vast major­i­ty of this pop­u­la­tion, espe­cial­ly among children.

Read the entire series on Asian Amer­i­can and Native Hawai­ian and Pacif­ic Islander children.

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