Effort aims to boost black males’ college achievement

Fall 2002: 17,068

Fall 2008: 23,255

Fall 2013: 30,582

Six-year graduation rate (first-time, full-time freshmen, bachelor’s degrees)

Fall 1997: 29.95% (graduated by Spring 2003)

Fall 2007: 40% (graduated by Spring 2013)

Bachelor’s degrees conferred

Fiscal 2003: 1,294

Fiscal 2012: 2,225

Source: University System of Georgia African American Male Initiative

The numbers are improving, but black males still face challenges in getting into colleges, staying there and graduating.

Those problems will be among the topics discussed when the White House comes to Morehouse College on Friday and Saturday for the first stop on a multicity series of summits on educational issues affecting black youth.

For the Obama administration, the summit also provides an opportunity to highlight the “My Brother’s Keeper” program. The $200 million, five-year initiative that launched last month is aimed at fixing persistent problems that prevent young black males from succeeding.

Experts say that black males many times arrive at college more unprepared academically and financially than their female counterparts, and once there, they can have a harder time navigating college life.

About 34 percent of black males complete college within six years, compared with about 43 percent of black women, according to national education data. For all students, the average is 57 percent. And at black colleges, black female students outnumber black males 3-to-2.

President Barack Obama has laid out an education agenda that says the access problem is one that is particularly harming black males, said Jim Shelton, deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Education. “Beginning in high school, are they taking the courses they need? Are they getting the kind of guidance and support they need? Do they know about completing (federal financial aid forms)?” he said. “And when they get to campus, is someone there to guide them so they are not getting blown away?”

A college degree is a strong factor in moving up an economic class. A recent Pew Research Center study found that college graduates ages 25 to 32 who are working full time earn, on average, about $17,500 more a year than working young adults with only a high school diploma.

Morehouse, which graduates the most black male students of any historically black college and university, has been hosting a black male summit for five years to address these issues.

There’s likely to be talk of broad statistics, such as the college enrollment gender gap between black males and females, and the low graduation rates for black men, Bryant Marks said.

But with those statistics comes nuance, said Marks, the director of the Morehouse Male Initiative and one of the organizers of the summit. The college gender gap exists for all races, he said, and black males tend to transfer from one college to another before graduating, making their numbers lower.

“That is what we’re going to point out,” Marks said. “We acknowledge that (the numbers are) not good, but there is nuance we need to understand.”

In grade school, Timothy Spicer Jr. was known for acting out and was labeled early as a troubled student. That reputation followed him into middle school. But a family move, a change in school districts and a lot of self-improvement got Spicer on track.

As an African-American male, you can easily get labeled and left behind, said Spicer, 21, now a student at Morehouse College. “We are already stereotyped, and that affects the success of us as students,” he said. “Boys have a tough time.”

Georgia’s higher education institutions have long worked to make college more attractive and a better experience for black males while improving their enrollment, retention and graduation numbers.

More than a decade ago, the University System of Georgia launched its African American Male Initiative targeting the obstacles black males face in getting to college. AAMI now counts campus-based programs for black males at 26 of the University System’s 31 institutions, said Arlethia Perry-Johnson, AAMI’s director.

A program at Georgia State University, for example, offers a faculty mentorship program. Marietta’s Southern Polytechnic State University offers a summer bridge program focused on retention and graduation for black male freshmen. And the University of Georgia works with black male students in high school and provides an early introduction to college life.

With that type of work, over time statistics for this targeted group have improved. Within the University System, black male enrollment has increased 79 percent from fall 2002 to fall 2013. And the six-year graduation rate for these students has reached about 40 percent.

Atlanta-based HBCUs such as Clark Atlanta University and Morehouse have also launched initiatives aimed at character, self-development and academics to improve the statistics for black males. CAU’s initiative includes a Man of the Year component showcasing some of the university’s top male scholars and role models. And Morehouse has revamped its entire first-year curriculum to include sessions on decision making and prioritizing, along with traditional academic studies. The college has also started a love and forgiveness program allowing students to share life experiences and forgive others and themselves for past transgressions.

CAU President Carlton Brown hopes to have his institution’s enrollment disparity — currently 70 percent of CAU’s students are female — down to between 60 percent female and 40 percent male in the next five years.

Brown has studied these issues for decades, including the difference in the way black male students are disciplined in grade school, long before getting to college.

“It is interesting that the same problems from back in the 1960s and 1970s, the impact on minority students has remained unchanged, and that has to be factored in as part of the problem that we are trying to address,” Brown said. “If they can’t get to college, I can’t impact them.”