I often baffle at the sight of kids playing outside fifteen minutes after the school bus has dropped them off at home. I wonder where the hell their parents are and why are they not yelling out the screen door telling them, “Come inside and do your homework.” This is a light-hearted example of how people lack in parenting their children, which leads me to my first point;

The importance of good home training can never be important enough.

I am the mother of three little boys, and I constantly think about what tools do my husband and I need to equip them with to succeed in this world. We are stern about education and set high standards which must be met in order for them not be in the hot seat. At times, I feel like we are being too hard on our sons, but then I soon after remember that setting high expectations yield high results. We expect the honor roll every quarter from our children and we get it. In my house, the decision to attend college is not left up to them. When the time comes to pick a college the only choice given will be which school and what major. My oldest boy is nine years old, and we as his parents have begun sometime ago assigning him chores and stressing that they are done to the best of his ability. He does not like it. He would love to watch TV and play all day, but that is not aloud. He has responsibilities and they must be fulfilled. My other two are five and four years old. They have minimal chores like cleaning their room, but TV is restricted to certain programs and times, etc. They will go on to lead productive lives because not only do we enforce it, but we also lead by example. If African Americans want more students in colleges we must start with building more strong families’.

My second point is that African Americans must learn the system and use it to our benefit. We are not recognizing our power in society which is the key cause of the school system being sub-par in predominantly African American communities. Politicians care about votes, plain and simple. If people in a community as a greater whole do not go to town meetings and vote in local politics than politicians aren’t going to fight for better funding and/or resources in those communities’ schools? How can we get more African American college students if we in our own communities do not make education an issue worth fighting for? People within the community need to take responsibility for their own place of residence. It is not anyone’s job to fight for us, especially if we do not fight for ourselves. During the Civil Rights era, African Americans fought and campaigned for their own rights. The civil rights movement was lead by our own community leaders, but would have not succeeded if the community did not also stand with them.

The power is in we, as a people standing together, not in I, standing alone.

Most of my friends are young professionals of all races, and we all stand together on most issues. We all vote, save, plan for retirement, etc. Progression is not a racial thing it is a mental thing. I grew up in a middle class family and essentially was raised to be an employee for the rest of my life. What got me out of the rat race into asset management and professional growth was my own desire. I wanted to be more than an employee and continue to work hard for that goal. Which leads me to my final point, How to increase the amount of African American students entering college?

Well… They have to want it!

My husband grew up dirt poor in the backwoods of North Carolina. He and his sister shared a double-wide trailer with his Grandmother and six other relatives. He tells our sons stories all the time of how he only had three pairs of underwear, and two pairs of socks. They had no indoor plumbing, so he’d fetch well water for bathing and cooking, even to wash his undergarments out so he would have a clean pair for the following day.

At thirteen, he and his sister went to live in New Jersey with their parents, but still had the bare minimum in life. His parents were disabled, raising three kids on Social Security, in a two bedroom apartment in the projects. He slept on the living room floor until he received his very own bed for the first time in college. Life was unfair to him, to say the least.

He attended crappy public schools, grew up around crime and drugs all his life. Statistically, he should be in jail or dead. However, he is the first person in his family ever to graduate from college, and currently at 29 years old, is more successful than anybody from his old neighborhood. The reason for this is he wanted to. It is that simple. At a young age, he decided that he wasn’t going to be poor when he was a man and taught himself through schooling and Christian values how to get there.

In life, there are always obstacles, and we as human beings have two choices. Climb the mountain or sit at the bottom of it. The African American community does need more college educated brothers and sisters. However, the greatest need is people with the dire determination to succeed no matter what the odds. That is how we attain more African Americans in college classrooms.