Mentoring young men of color using professional work experience can significantly boost their likelihood of graduating from high school and going on to college.
That’s according to the Urban Institute’s final evaluation of the Urban Alliance High School Internship program, which combines college-and-career mentorship with six weeks of professional career-skills training and a senior-year internship for middle-achieving students.
The internship program increased all participants’ comfort in filling out college and financial-aid applications. Young men who had taken part in the internship program were 23 percentage points more likely than those in the control group to attend college, 78 percent versus only 55 percent for men in the control group. Participating men also were 21 percentage points more likely to have earned an associate degree or still be enrolled in a third year of college three years after high school.
But the program had high attrition overall, and girls seemed to fare equally well with or without the supports.
