Jews and Judaism in The United States - Demographics

Socioeconomics

As a group, American Jews tend to be better educated and earn more than Americans as a whole. Forty-six percent (55% of Reform Jews) report family incomes of over $100,000 compared to 19% of all Americans, with the next highest group being Hindus at 43%. And while 27% of Americans have had college or postgraduate education, fifty-nine percent (66% of Reform Jews) of American Jews have, the second highest of any religious group after American Hindus.

Either of these two statistics may be confounded by the fact that the Jewish population is on average older than other religious groups in the country, with 51% of polled adults over the age of 50 compared to 41% nationally. Older people tend to both have higher income and be more highly educated.

According to analysis by Gallup, American Jews have the highest well-being of any ethnic or religious group in America.

The great majority of school-age Jewish students attend public schools, although Jewish day schools and yeshivas are to be found throughout the country. Jewish cultural studies and Hebrew language instruction is also commonly offered at synagogues in the form of supplementary Hebrew schools or Sunday schools.

Until the 1950s, a quota system at elite colleges and universities limited the number of Jewish students. Before 1945, only a few Jewish professors were permitted as instructors at elite universities. In 1941, for example, antisemitism drove Milton Friedman from a non-tenured assistant professorship at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Harry Levin became the first Jewish full professor in the Harvard English department in 1943, but the Economics department decided not to hire Paul Samuelson in 1948. Harvard hired its first Jewish biochemists in 1954.

Today, American Jews no longer face the discrimination in higher education that they did in the past, particularly in the Ivy League. For example, by 1986, a third of the presidents of the elite undergraduate final clubs at Harvard were Jewish. Rick Levin has been president of Yale University since 1993, Judith Rodin was president of the University of Pennsylvania from 1994 to 2004 (and is currently president of the Rockefeller Foundation), Paul Samuelson's nephew, Lawrence Summers, was president of Harvard University from 2001 until 2006, and Harold Shapiro was president of Princeton University from 1992 until 2000.

Public Universities

Rank	University	Enrollment for Jewish Students (est.)	% of Student body	Undergraduate Enrollment
1	Binghamton University	3,200	29%	11,000
1	University of Maryland, College Park	6,500	26%	25,857
2	University of Florida	5,400	15%	34,612
3	Rutgers University	5,000	13%	37,072
4	University of Central Florida	4,500	11%	39,545
5	University of Michigan Pennsylvania State University Indiana University University of Wisconsin–Madison	4,000	16% 10% 10% 14%	25,555 36,612 32,000 28,462
6	California State University, Northridge Florida State University University of Texas, Austin	3,800	14% 9% 10%	26,854 40,474 36,878
7	University at Albany Florida International University	3,500	31% 9%	12,013 39,500

Private Universities

Rank	University	Enrollment of Jewish Student (est.)	% of Student body	Undergraduate Enrollment
1	New York University	6,500	33%	19,401
2	Boston University	4,000	20%	15,981
3	Cornell University	3,500	25%	13,515
4	University of Miami	3,100	22%	14,000
5	The George Washington University University of Pennsylvania Yeshiva University	2,800	31% 30% 99%	10,394 9,718 2,803
8	Syracuse University	2,500	20%	12,500
9	Columbia University Emory University Harvard University Tulane University	2,000	29% 30% 30% 30%	6,819 6,510 6,715 6,533
13	Brandeis University Northwestern University Washington University in St. Louis	1,800	56% 23% 29%	3,158 7,826 6,097

"Hillel's Top 10 Jewish Schools". Hillel. Hillel.org. February 16, 2006. http://www.hillel.org/about/news/2006/feb/20060216_top.htm. Retrieved January 6, 2009.

There are an estimated 4,000 Jewish students at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Jews and Judaism in The United States - Demographics - Socioeconomics