Bridging the Gap: Empowering Young Men of Color in Higher Education

Our service site, Improve Your Tomorrow, is dedicated to creating a future where young men of color are overrepresented in higher education and underrepresented in the criminal justice system. In contributing our part to seeing this mission through, we have explored the systemic barriers that make college inaccessible to this demographic of students. Based on our experiences working with primarily African American and Hispanic students at Improve Your Tomorrow, we have observed firsthand the challenges they face in navigating high school and pursuing higher education. Our research has identified four key barriers that contribute to these challenges, which are highlighted in the following presentation. Building on this, we have developed eight interactive workshops to help young men of color overcome these obstacles. These workshops, consisting of slide presentations, worksheets, and other interactive activities, are now available for Improve Your Tomorrow staff to incorporate into after-school programming.