According to Maxwell (2004), “nationally, a mere quarter of the 1.9-million black men between 18 and 24 attended college in 2000, the last year the American Council on Education reported such statistics.” Over the past 33 years, black women have enrolled in four-year colleges at higher rates than have black men, according to the results of a study conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA's Graduate School of Education & Information Studies.
David Miller, Chief Visionary Officer for the Urban Leadership Institute (ULI) located in Baltimore, Maryland in his Executive Summary Man Up: Recruiting and Retaining African American Male Mentors revealed some very alarming data with regards to African American males. According to Mr. Miller: (1) A black boy has a 1 and 3 chance of going to prison in his life time compared to 1 in 17 for his white counterpart; (2) Homicides among African American males ages 15-19 years of age represents one of the leading causes of death ; and (3) 59 percent of black males in their early 30s who dropped out of school had prison records.
Mr. Miller goes on to posit the challenges facing black boys are magnified when one examines additional factors such as:
- Increasing teen births which is 68% for African Americans
- 58% of African American children are growing up in single family households
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