The growing gender gap

Chris Catching says that African-American men are being left behind.

A doctoral student in education at Rutgers University, he doesn't think higher education knows what to do with black men. So he wants to show them. He's studying his fellow students and learning why they are staying in school.

"So much of the research focuses on the pathological," Catching said. Instead, they should find out what works, he added.

Nationwide, women earn the lion's share of college degrees among African-Americans. The gender gap has been growing for years, and educators have been grasping for ways to close it.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 68 percent of all baccalaureate degrees awarded nationwide to African-Americans are given to women. In New Jersey, the figure is 67 percent. African-American women graduate at a higher rate than their male counterparts. In addition, 52 percent of African-American women graduate from college within six years in New Jersey, compared with 40 percent of black men, according to statistics collected by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

"It's just a very complex problem. One of the things I know about boys is for boys, it's just not cool. It's just not macho to get an education, to speak properly, to be the top of the class. Among our boys, it's just not macho to be that person," said Carey Jenkins, founder of Operation Link-Up, a program that helps children in the Paterson, N.J., schools attend college.

Jenkins has 27 students attending Syracuse University, but only five of them are men.

Jenkins said there are a lot of messages in the media and in the classroom that discourage African-American boys, who can feel out of place in school.

"I think a negative message is being sent out to boys," he said. "There just seem to be more positive role models for girls, more women who are out there who are doing something."

Jesse Gray attends Syracuse University with 26 of his peers from the Paterson schools. But he's only one of five male students there from his school district. He joined Operation Link-Up as a freshman at John F. Kennedy High School. He always knew he would go to college, even though he was the first in his family.

"I wanted to get a good education and you can't expect to get out of high school and just have a great job waiting for you," said Gray, a freshman studying mechanical engineering. He noticed quite quickly there weren't many other African-American boys following his path.

"Looking around every year since grade school, there's always been a lot more girls," Gray said. But the gap only made him more determined to succeed.

"It was a little added pressure because there were only (a few) boys there; you had to hold your end of the bargain," Gray said.

The college gender gap isn't limited to African-Americans, even though the disparity between black men and women is the largest. According to the U.S. Department of Education, women make up 56 percent of all college students. It's a gap that's been growing for nearly three decades. The department estimates that if trends continue, 3 million more women than men will be in college by 2014.

Sandra Timmons of Hackensack, N.J., president of A Better Chance, an organization that places talented young minorities in demanding public and private secondary schools, said she's noticed the percentage of boys in her program drop over the years.

Out of the 11,000 alumni of the 43-year old organization 55 percent are male and 45 percent are female, she said. But among students currently in the program, about 60 percent are female and 40 percent male. She said about 60 percent of the youths are African-American.

She said there are many reasons for this, explaining that studies show African-American boys are less likely than girls to graduate from high school and that few are picked to take demanding classes in elementary school that give them an early head start on college.

"If you're falling behind by Grade 3 or 4 in reading, it's difficult to even get into a program like ours," Timmons said.

She said educators spent a lot of time in the '70s and '80s helping girls catch up. It might be time now to make sure boys aren't falling behind.

"It's a problem that people have ignored," Timmons said.

One key: mentors

Catching, the Rutgers doctoral student, said African-American men who succeed in college share many characteristics. In particular, he said, they all had several mentors who have helped them.

"Some of the key things have been mentors at all levels of their life, mentors in their community, parental support and sensitivity on behalf of educators," Catching said. "Those mentors help you get through those roadblocks." He said mentors helped him graduate from Montclair State University in 1999.

Jenkins, of Operation Link-Up, added that it takes more effort to convince boys to go to college than girls.

He said that if he could hire another person, he'd have that person roam the halls of Paterson's high schools to attract more boys into his program. Unlike girls, Jenkins said, boys need more convincing to see the value of college. "You've got to find them and you've got to drag them in, then you've got to sell them on education."