Teddy Bears & Barbie Dolls (Part I)

It's June and in addition to being a month known for weddings and Father's Day, it is also a month known for graduations. I work at a major university (which I won't name) but, if you know the city I live in, you can use the process of elimination and pretty much figure it out. Anyway, I go to the university's graduations occassionally and I make note of the racial make up of the graduates. The great majority of the graduates are, of course, white. Asians make up the next great majority with Hispanics and African-Americans bringing up the rear. Of the African-Americans, it dismays me that females almost always make up the majority of the graduates. In fact, they usually outnumber the males three to one.

When I attended college in the late 1970's-early 80's, it was like four to one. (Of course, me and my partners loved those kinds of odds back then but, that's another post for another time.) There is a high school directly across the street from where I work and it's population is 99% African-American. I look at the graduation class and I can realistically say that maybe 3- 5% of it's graduates will actually be eligible (by GPA) to attend this university and of that 3-5%, only half of those kids' parents will actually be able to afford to send their kids to this university.The rest will almost certainly need aid of some sort.

I attended a state university, which was supposed to be affordable and my parents still didn't have enough money to pay for me straight up. I had one scholarship and had to pay for the rest with student loans. I was 31 by the time I finally paid my student loan off. (I finished college at the age of 23 so, it took me eight years to pay off an "affordable school.") If I had attended this university, chances are, I would still be paying my student loans... which is okay because you can't put a price on the value of an education. For those of you out there who are still in school, working to support yourself, and paying off your student loan(s), I applaud you...I feel you...I've been there.

This brings me to my real point. Where are the young men? A lot of our young men aren't even finishing high school and this will most certainly lead them to attending another institution... a correctional institution. I have a theory about what happens to young black men and young men in general during the school years. I will delve deeper into this in my next post.