Our goal must be to see that our investments in motivating and educating students in our homes and in the elementary and secondary schools provide the students with the ability to pursue the advanced education and training that today's labor market values so highly.
Certainly, the trends in college-attendance by blacks have been positive in recent years, but compared with the uptrend in high-school completion, progress in college completion among African Americans has unfortunately been relatively slow. The percentage of the black population aged 25 to 35 that has completed four years of college more than doubled between 1970 and 2000, from 6.5 percent to 15 percent.