Black Male Success in Higher Education Essay

The first main point the authors’ introduce is to recognize black males’ lived experiences. Black males have an experience unique to just them. Black men’s experiences of racism impact their education. They even face consequences for pursuing education. Those consequences could be social, educational, and economic. To understand these key issues, you must first look at the past. Black men have always had to overcome great obstacles. Low literacy, limited employment, high incarceration rates, have predisposed many black men to never being able to escape poverty. Further, being impoverished means a less chance that these men will go into higher education. Higher education is so expensive these days, and the underfunding of financial aid and other

In each year from 1998 through 2000 there was a 1%-point decline in the graduation rate for black men. But for the past 4 years the graduation rate for black men increase by a 1% point and now stand at a 35%. This year the college graduation rate for black women rose by one percentage point to 46%. With many years of hard work African American thrive for a better education ignoring the statistic that states that 9.6% of African American would drop out of high school. African American prove that they can achieve and will achieve.

Today's education is often viewed as failing in its goal of educating students, especially those students characterized as minorities, including African American, Hispanic, and Appalachian students (Quiroz, 1999). Among the minority groups mentioned, African American males are affected most adversely. Research has shown that when Black male students are compared to other students by gender and race they consistently rank lowest in academic achievement (Ogbu, 2003), have the worst attendance record (Voelkle, 1999), are suspended and expelled the most often (Raffaele Mendez, 2003; Staples, 1982), are most likely to drop out of school, and most often fail to graduate from high school or to earn a GED (Pinkney, 2000; Roderick, 2003).

For African American men, a crisis is occurring as institutions continue to observe dismal graduation rates. As a continue to learn about African American male student success in higher education, it has become more imperative that I understand my institutional efforts to address this issue. Like institutions across the nation, California State University, Northridge (CSUN), acknowledges the disparity in retention and graduation rates for students of color specifically African American male students. There have been many initiatives directed at supporting students of color persistence. CSUN has several programs directed towards improving African American

Among the nation 's largest Division I universities, the graduation rate for black students was 44% in 2013, compared with 66% for white students (Marklein). This fact along with the article, A Letter to My Nephew, by James Baldwin from the stimulus material, sparked my interest. I began to research the general topic of African Americans in college. Baldwin wrote about the idea of white americans intentionally hindering the success of black americans. As he states that white americans did not expect african americans to aspire to excellence and made sure that african americans knew in as many ways as possible that they were worthless human beings. Researching more into this idea, I found a correlation between African American success

A substantial amount of educational and psychological research has consistently demonstrated that African American students underperform academically relative to White students. For example, they tend to receive lower grades in school (e.g., Demo & Parker, 1987; Simmons, Brown, Bush, & Blyth, 1978), score lower on standardized tests of intellectual ability (e.g., Bachman, 1970; Herring, 1989; Reyes & Stanic, 1988; Simmons et al., 1978), drop out at higher rates (e.g., American Council on Education, 1990; Steele, 1992), and graduate from college with substantially lower grades than White students (e.g., Nettles, 1988). Such performance gaps can be attributed to

Next, “There is a large debate regarding why Black males are overrepresented in categories associated with negative behavior. The experiment conducted on this negative stereotype explored the influences on environmental lack of economic resources, social and political aspects related to academic performance of black males. The environment and culture can help shape the male’s performance. Resolutions to the many issues listed above are a work in progress. Organizations which include educators, parent and youth service providers are combining their energy to diffuse and redirect the matter. “The Trouble with Black Boys: The Role and Influence of Environmental and Cultural Factors on the Academic Performance of African American Males”, (Noguera ,2015 p.1).In brief, on the

In a black community, dropping out of high school is more common among the black race than those of the white race. Thus, those poorly parented males do not graduate, and therefore, look to the streets for guidance the not given to them at home*. In addition to poor supervision, black makes are restricted in their educational opportunities to pursue*. For most, not having the ability to further their education forced them to drop out of high school and pursue the street life*. After multiple types of research, according to statistics, in 2008, it was estimated that approximately twice as many black males will drop out of high school in comparison to white males*. In total, 9 percent of black males dropped out of high school, with only 5 percent

In 2010, Black females “earned twice the number of baccalaureate degrees than Black males (66% vs 34%). Also, 70% of Black men do not complete a college degree within six years,” according to “Deficient or Resilient: A Critical Review of Black Male Academic Success and Persistence in Higher Education.” Black males are usually a product of their environment which translates into their performance in college. Most of them will have friends and family who may discourage them and even encourage them to participate in illegal activities. Black males are not only prideful but they also put on a façade to the world that hinders their success. According to the same article, factors that contribute to a Black males success in college include “the ability to…becom[e] engaged on campus through leadership opportunities, the development of meaningful relationships with peers and mentors, and receiving ample familial and spiritual support.” In spite of the fact that, Black male students are often more successful at an HBCU because they feel more valued, they still have no chance to catch up with their female peers. They do not have the ambition and persistence to work hard particularly through the challenges that they face daily. They let their past failures, and their present obstacles define their future. Black males take the easy route and sell illegal drugs, commit robbery, gamble, rape and degrade women, and forget about the importance of their education, for a temporary relief. According to the article that is previously stated, “Black male attainment at HBCUs has declined by 6% in a single decade, and is currently hovering at 29%, in contrast with the 57% graduate rate of female counterparts.” In this article there is a study taken of 44 Black Males in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programs at HBCUs. This

Today, African American students are under-represented in college and universities, and the reason is the ongoing disenfranchisement of African American students. Our education system needs be more responsive and needs to pay more attention to the college preparation for these students. People of color historically have been misrepresented, exploited, silenced, and taken for granted in education research (Dillard, 2000; Stanfield, 1995), (H. Richard Milner IV, 2008).

For blacks, the history of higher education typically points to segregated education. Before the Civil War, the social system promoted the belief that blacks wouldn’t get return on their time spent in higher education. Brown and Ricard (2007) noted that most North institutions were reluctant to allow black enrollment in colleges and universities, and in the South, where slaveholder’s were still powerhouse businessmen, slaves would never be allowed to become more educated than their owners. The reluctance of the White leaders to allow blacks to formally be accepted into higher education programs held blacks back from achieving what many aspired to, and were fully capable of, experience.

African American students account for the larger majority of minorities in public schools in the United States. Most areas in the northern part of the United states and coastal areas are ethnically diverse. However, down south this is not the case. Students of color will experience a harder time in the education system. African American students meet the obstacle of educators who will not want them to succeed based on a preconceived thought. In fact, Caucasian teachers make up for 85% of all

In education, white people have always been at an advantage compared to other races. African-American have had quite a setback in prior years. There was a time when African-American weren’t even allowed to learn how to write or read in our country just because of the color of their skin. There has been quite the improvement from those times in terms of African-Americans obtaining an education. According to Essentials of Sociology, only about 20 percent of African-Americans had a high school diploma in the year of 1960. The number has increased significantly to roughly 82 percent in 2013. That percentage represents a significant change that shows how our nation has progressed throughout the years. However, you are still at a set back if you aren’t white. “Black students were expelled at three times the rate of white students” (Hsieh, 2014).

To highlight this point further, I will discuss a few statistics that highlight the low representation of the African American males at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). As stated in an article, if you add up all of the African American male students at UCLA in 2012, there were only 660 “black” students out of 19,838 other males enrolled at UCLA (only 3.3%), but out of those 660 students, 65% of them were at UCLA for their athletics program (Jaschik 2013). This means only 231 black male students were at UCLA for academic reasons. These numbers clearly show the low diversity of African American males at UCLA, but why are these numbers so low? Various types of media state that this is because “black” youths are just not into academics, they are more prone to drop out of high school, do drugs and much more. Yes, it is true that African American youths do get involved in the wrong things at a young age (so do other groups within the society), but not every “black” male is like this. I would even go to the extent to say that it is the way our society has been developed that allows African American youths to follow the wrong path. One of the main reasons a huge amount of African American males go on the wrong path is because of the media; they are always showing the negative side of African American communities. This

All of my life I've always known that I will be a successful black man . With my own business helping to heal the world through its trial and error . I have always been a soft spoken boy , throughout elementary, middle , and high school my peers have always somehow tried to use that as an excuse to make me feel differnt than everyone else . Being a child with two other siblings who are totally different then you can really put a toll on you . While you're inside the house reading books and your siblings are outside with friends riding bikes it appears that you are "different " or a "sissy" Making you seem like the outcast at school and at home . I always ignored and kept to my self until I was sexually molested twice , once when I was seven and the other time when I was nine , first time by a girl , the second time by a male . Being