MDRC has been awarded a grant by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) at the U.S. Department of Education to refine and evaluate a portion of the University System of Georgia’s (USG) African-American Male Initiative (AAMI) operating at five broad-access institutions within the system. African-American students at broad-access institutions graduate at a rate significantly below the 50 percent average for students of all ethnicities and races.

USG initiated AAMI in 2002 to increase enrollment, retention, and graduation for black males, who accounted for only 32 percent of USG’s enrollment at that time. The AAMI comprises four components intended to encourage college completion among African-American male students: academic skill-building, student support services, mentoring, and leadership development.

The goals of this IES-funded project are to: (1) refine the AAMI in ways that that improve its support for African-American males, and (2) evaluate the effectiveness of the AAMI to assess whether it increases the percentage of African-American male students who complete associate’s or bachelor’s degrees.

This grant is part of IES’s College Completion Network, which is evaluating the impacts and determining the costs of strategies designed to support increased degree attainment among students attending open- and broad-access postsecondary institutions.