Photo by Ashley Mowreader

Members of the Morgan MILE program pose for photos during lunch at Morgan State in May. The program aims to support men in higher ed through brotherhood, character building and professional development. From left to right: Daniel Blessing, Loic Nemlin Koffi, Miles Davis, K’Miles Davis, Cameron Collins, Devin Easley, Jayden Sterrette, Rasheed Soumas (taking photo).

Across demographic groups, young Black men are the least likely to attend college and earn a degree. Institutions are using new and established interventions to foster connection and vocation among the next generation of Black male graduates.

When Cameron Collins was in high school, “college wasn’t exactly my first plan,” he said.

Collins was raised by a single mom and his grandmother in Prince George’s County, Maryland. His father didn’t graduate college and the other men in his life worked in the trades. “That was what I wanted to do,” he said. “I didn’t really have a male role model in my life—outside of like my coach from sports—who graduated college.”

Collins encountered a challenge many Black men face as they consider their lives after high school: whether or not to pursue a college degree. A majority of Black men forgo postsecondary education, for a variety of reasons—including the lack of role models or peers in higher education.

“Representation matters,” said Derrick Brooms, inaugural executive director of the Black Men’s Research Institute at Morehouse College, where he studies Black men’s experiences in college. “Those representations are living manifestations of possibilities.”

While Black youth make up 15 percent of all 15- to 25-year-olds, in 2025 they accounted for less than 11 percent of all students enrolled in undergraduate programs in the U.S. Only a third of Black college students are men, and they are significantly less likely to graduate in six years than Black women or college students overall.

For decades, colleges, policymakers and advocates have sought to grow the number of Black men in higher education and improve their graduation rates. But now that the Trump administration has prohibited initiatives—and even research—aimed at individuals based on race or gender, closing equity gaps has become more difficult for institutions.

Despite the political backlash, some colleges are investing in new and proven interventions for Black men that build pipelines to college, establish a sense of belonging and provide students with mentorship and peer support.

Gaps in Enrollment

Over the past 50 years, Black student enrollment has grown across higher ed. In 1972, Black students made up 8 percent of all college students, according to U.S. census data. In spring 2025, Black students made up approximately 11 percent of enrollments, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s estimates.

Representation matters. Those representations are living manifestations of possibilities.”

Derrick Brooms, inaugural executive director of the Black Men’s Research Institute at Morehouse College

However, Black men are not attending college at the same rates as their female counterparts. In 1972, 20 percent of Black men and 16 percent of Black women between the ages of 18 and 24 were enrolled in higher education, according to census data. But by 2021, Black women were attending college at much higher rates than their male peers: 42 percent versus 31 percent.

And educational attainment for Black men continues to lag behind national averages. In 2024, a little less than half (46 percent) of all Americans ages 25 and up held an associate degree or higher, according to census data published in September. Among Black men, only one-third did.

Barriers to Success

For young Black men, decisions about attending college or going straight into the workforce often hinge on cost and the perceived return on investment, Brooms said.

In an age of cryptocurrency, predictive market betting and sports gambling, the opportunities for young men to make money fast loom large. The payoff for a college degree has grown less certain, judging from high unemployment rates for college graduates and fewer available jobs in male-dominated fields that require a degree, such as computer science.

Some men see more value in working than in spending four to six years on a degree “that might not even yield anything at the end,” explained Jonathan Quash, university executive director of the City University of New York’s Black Male Initiative.

In interviews, students who choose college cited early and persistent influences who pushed them toward higher education—middle school teachers, parents, siblings and community members.

For Collins, who is now a rising junior at Morgan State University in Baltimore, it was his high school guidance counselor and chemistry teacher who encouraged him to consider college.

“They told me that I was already doing well in school now, and I shouldn’t want to limit myself,” he said. “I should be trying to excel in the highest degree, and college is one of the ways to do that.”

Without them, “I don’t know if I would be here in college now,” Collins said.

But just enrolling isn’t enough. For Black students to stay in college, they need to have a sense of belonging, Quash said. Research shows students are more likely to drop out if they feel isolated or experience discrimination. A 2026 study from Brandeis University found that one-third of Black students experienced prejudice on campus and 34 percent felt their campus was hostile toward people of color.

For men of color, mentor and peer support can make the difference between staying enrolled and leaving college, said Saúl Valdez, director of the American Institute for Boys and Men’s Higher Education Male Achievement Collaborative.

“If you don’t have that one person on campus who is your champion or your advocate, then it’s pretty easy to feel like the system is not tailored toward you or to support you,” Valdez.

In the past, colleges created targeted programs to promote belonging among Black or male students. But recent state and federal crackdowns on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives have made it significantly harder for colleges to focus on singular populations.

Shortly after President Trump took office, the Department of Education issued a Dear Colleague letter to colleges and universities that took an expansive view of the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling banning affirmative action in admissions and declared race-based scholarships, cultural centers and other resources illegal.

In response to several lawsuits, the courts blocked ED’s interpretation of the law. But many colleges responded anyway, eliminating perceived DEI measures in order to avoid losing federal funds. Colleges nationwide shuttered DEI offices, rebranded graduations or mentorship programs, laid off staff and struck affinity language from public-facing webpages.

Since then, many institutions have sought to avoid scrutiny by widening the framing of their belonging and mentoring interventions to include students from all gender and racial backgrounds.

Some, including CUNY, have continued to offer Black male-focused initiatives, prompting backlash from the federal government. On Tuesday, the Justice Department announced it was opening an investigation into CUNY for alleged racial discrimination—even though the university website says the Black Male Initiative is “open to all academically eligible students.”

If you don’t have that one person on campus who is your champion or your advocate, then it’s pretty easy to feel like the system is not tailored toward you.”

Saúl Valdez, director of the American Institute for Boys and Men’s Higher Education Male Achievement Collaborative.

Pathways to Campus

For Black men, the barriers to completion pile up well before they set foot on a college campus.

Research shows that Black students are more likely to face disciplinary action in school, which can make them feel less safe and supported. A 2012 survey found that nearly half of Black boys at public schools grades 6 to 12 have been suspended from school at some point.

At the same time, Black students often face academic disadvantages in high school that can limit their college opportunities. They are less likely than their White peers to be recommended by their teachers for advanced coursework, and their schools are less likely even to offer advanced coursework or dual enrollment (completing college classes while in high school) opportunities.

While 15 percent of all high schoolers in the U.S. are Black men, only 8 percent participate in dual enrollment, said John Fink, a senior research associate and program lead at Columbia University Teacher’s College Community College Research Center (CCRC). In comparison, white students account for half of the students in dual enrollment, though they comprise 46 percent of all high schoolers.

When Black students do earn college credits in high school, they’re more likely to attend selective universities and to complete a bachelor’s degree in a competitive field like STEM, Fink said. But “the vast majority of school districts have racial and ethnic gaps in dual enrollment participation,” according to CCRC findings.

To provide greater access to dual enrollment and offer a glimpse into the college experience, some HBCUs have embedded charter schools on their campuses.

One example is the Early College School, a public charter middle and high school in Dover, Del., housed at Delaware State University, the state’s only Historically Black University. ECS enrolls up to 625 students, predominantly of color, in grades 7 to 12 and allows them to earn up to 60 credits at DSU and graduate with an associate degree.

On paper, ECS operates like all other charter schools in Delaware: both the middle and high school are open access, and students are chosen through a lottery. But walking on campus reveals just how distinctive it is.

The middle school is connected to a DSU student center and the high school is nearly indistinguishable from other campus buildings. Pictures of Black heroes and celebrities decorate the hallways alongside a list of their accomplishments. ECS students dine in a DSU cafeteria and spend time at the student union; those enrolled in college courses trek independently to various academic buildings.

One of them, Darius Rainey, a senior from Smyrna, Del., has dreams of working in cybersecurity and IT. He knew college would be a part of his plan (in part influenced by his dad and dad’s friends’ career paths) and he believes ECS’s dual enrollment opportunities have expedited his journey to get there.

“I feel like I’m a lot more prepared for the college classes next year; it definitely put me in the mindset that I needed,” Rainey said. He graduated in May with his associate degree and will start at DSU in the fall.

ECS’s average daily attendance rate is 95 percent, 4 percentage points higher than the national average—and a rarity in any high school post-COVID. Its four-year graduation rate is 95 percent for all students including Black students, 7 percentage points higher than the state average.

Administrators attribute student success to high expectations, strong relationships between students and teachers and Black male mentors in the school.

“Being connected to people who you don’t want to let down in some ways [is important], because I know they’re invested in me, not just as a person, but also in what it is that I want to pursue and accomplish,” said Brooms of Morehouse, an all men’s HBCU in Atlanta.

Scholars, as teachers call ECS students, are reminded early and often that attending college courses is a privilege they earn. Students said they’re pushed to reach the same level of maturity as their college-going peers. In addition to content knowledge, they gain time management and professional communication skills, as well as diligence in respecting school rules.

On a campus tour, students pointed to various buildings and noted exactly which grade levels were allowed to access them. Dorms and parties are off-limits to ECS students; the student union is open to students in college courses, and the on-campus Chick-fil-A is accessible only to college course attendees on good behavior. Administrators stressed they want to give students a taste of college life, predominantly through academics.

Another feature that sets ECS apart from other Delaware charters is its demographics. The students are mostly students of color, and the staff are predominantly Black, with Black men serving as coaches, teachers and counselors.

Nationally, Black men make up only 1.3 percent of public school teachers, despite comprising 6 percent of the total population. Having just one Black teacher is associated with greater educational gains for Black youth.

“When you talk about Black boys in school and higher ed, they have to see themselves and what they can aspire to be,” said Dara Savage, associate principal for Early College School.

But the turnover rate for Black male teachers is high, partly because Black men are often tasked with disciplining Black students, said Kai Maull, one of ECS’s school counselors. “The more of that that happens, you know, the males, they get out. That’s where the burnout comes for them, for us.”

On average, over 60 percent of ECS students enroll at Delaware State after graduation. This year, 64 percent of graduating men will attend DSU in the fall and an additional 15 percent will attend another college or university, interim Principal Nyia Pritchett said. This past fall, Delaware State’s ECS model expanded to HBCU Early College Prep, a public charter school in Queens, New York, welcoming just over 100 high school freshmen.