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The crisis of male college graduation and what institutions of higher education are doing about it

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The crisis of male college graduation and what institutions of higher education are doing about it

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The Crisis of Male College Graduation and What Institutions of Higher Education Are
Doing About It

Ara Arzumanian

Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
A dissertation submitted to the faculty
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Education

May 2023

© Copyright by Ara Arzumanian 2023
All Rights Reserved

The Committee for Ara Arzumanian certifies the approval of this Dissertation

David Cash
Dennis Hocevar
Artineh Samkian, Committee Chair

Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
2023

iv
Abstract
Men access and complete higher education at significantly lower rates than women (Shapiro et
al., 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019; IPEDS; Table 1). From 2010–2020 men attained 8.6
million fewer higher education degrees and certificates than women. This disparity has wide
ranging negative implications for the individual men in question as well as the society as a
whole. This study examined what approaches institutions of higher education (IHE) were
employing to address the male graduation crisis through a qualitative document analysis
approach. Using a representative sample of IHEs within the three most common sectors of higher
education—public 4-year schools, private 4-year schools and community colleges, which
collectively serve 93% or 15.2 million of the nation’s undergraduate students—this study
reviewed the websites and planning documents of 46 institutions to determine what current
differentiated supports were aimed at male students for increased retention and what planning
IHEs were undertaking in pursuit of this goal. Data were analyzed against this study’s conceptual
framework, a prominent feature of which is strengths-based perspective.
This study found that the IHEs within the representative sample were neither supporting male
students in differentiated settings for increased retention, nor planned to. A conservative estimate
is that less than 0.74% of the nation’s undergraduate students attend a university or college that
provided differentiated supports to its male students for increased retention. Detailed discussion
of what little was found is included along with recommendations for future practice and research.
Keywords: higher education, retention, graduation, men, male, masculinity, masculine,
college, university, community college, institutions of higher education, strengths-based
perspective, deficits-based perspective

v
Dedication
To my wife, Luiza, you are the air in my lungs; you are the blood in my veins. You are a blessing
from God. I could not have done this without you.

To my children, you are also blessings from God, to whom I give thanks each day. I see in you
the beauty and strength to achieve all your most valued goals. Life is difficult but beautiful; and
so, I implore you to always Fight On!

To Andranik, Janet, Shakeh and Karineh, you were my first blessings and forever continue to be.
I thank you for all your support always; it’s what got me here.

vi
Acknowledgements
This could not have been achieved without the support of my committee members, Dr.
David Cash and Dr. Dennis Hocevar. Thank you both for your dedication to the field of
education in general and to my education in particular. Special gratitude goes to Dr. Artineh
Samkian, without whom this would not have been possible. You inspire me with your openness,
inquisitiveness, and steadfast adherence to academic rigor. Your willingness to entertain
relentless questioning and your true dedication as an educator makes you a uniquely special
individual. I appreciate you.
I would also like to thank my colleagues at the USC Rossier Center for Enrollment
Research, Policy and Practice for your support and encouragement: Dr. Emily Chung, Dr. Jerry
Lucido, Benjamin Robles, Sarah Ruderman, Dennis Funes, Gabriela Duncan, Elisa Castillo,
Cristina Marin, Mariah Jacobo and Joanna Contreras . I appreciate you all. Thank you to Dr.
Ruth Chung and Dr. Tatiana Melguizo for your guidance. Thanks also to Samuel Barbett of the
National Center for Education Statistics for your help in navigating the data.

vii
Table of Contents
Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iv
Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... v
Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ vi
List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. ix
List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. x
Chapter One: Overview of the Study .............................................................................................. 1
The Larger Conversation .................................................................................................... 7
Chapter Two: Conceptual Framework .......................................................................................... 14
Tinto’s PIE, Astin’s Slice and Organizational Commitment ............................................ 14
Types of Retention-Focused Student Supports ................................................................. 19
The Ingredients ................................................................................................................. 22
Male, Female Differences of Import to Practitioners ....................................................... 34
Summary ........................................................................................................................... 39
Chapter Three: Research Methods ................................................................................................ 41
Methodological Approach ................................................................................................ 41
Sampling ........................................................................................................................... 42
Data Collection Methods .................................................................................................. 44
Data Analysis .................................................................................................................... 46
Ethics ................................................................................................................................. 46
Limitations ........................................................................................................................ 46
Delimitations ..................................................................................................................... 47
Credibility and Trustworthiness ........................................................................................ 48
Chapter Four: Findings ................................................................................................................. 50
Chapter Five: Discussion .............................................................................................................. 96

viii
References ................................................................................................................................... 106
Tables and Figures ...................................................................................................................... 120

ix
List of Tables
Table 1: U.S. Degrees and Certificates Awarded by Award Level and Sex at
Sector 1, 2 and 4 Institutions, 2010–2020, Plus Totals for All Sectors

120
Table 2: Undergraduate Enrollment for Sectors 1, 2 and 4 by Race/Ethnicity
With Number and Percent Fewer Males Enrolled in Each Group by
Year

123
Table 3: U.S. Degrees and Certificates Awarded in Sectors 1, 2 and 4
Separated by Race/Ethnicity With Number and Percent Fewer Male
Recipients in Each Group by Year

125
Table 4: California State University 6-Year Outcomes by Cohort Year for
Male and Female Students, Pell Recipients
127
Table 5: California State University 6-Year Outcomes by Cohort Year for
Male and Female Students, Non-Pell Recipients
129
Table 6: Six-Year Outcomes by Sex and Age-At-First-Entry, Totals and
Averages for 2009–2013 Cohorts (Graduating 2015–2019)

131
Table 7: 2020 Fall Male/Female College Enrollment: Sectors 1, 2 and 4 and
Ivy League Separately

134
Table 8: Sector 1 Sampled Institutions of Higher Education With Fall 2020
Enrollment Numbers
135
Table 9: Sector 2 Sampled Institutions of Higher Education With Fall 2020
Enrollment Numbers
137
Table 10: Sector 4 Sampled Institutions of Higher Education With Fall 2020
Enrollment Numbers
139
Table 11: Phase 2 Planning Document Search Terms 141
Table 12 Phase 3 Internet Search Terms 142
Table 13 Codes of Differentiated Supports Aimed at Specific Subpopulations 143
Table 14 Types of Evidence-Based, Retention-Focused Student Support
Programs
144
Table 15 Evidence-Based Programming and Service Elements 145
Table 16 Differentiated Programs Aimed at Men or Men of Color Found
During Study

146

x

List of Figures
Figure 1: Tinto’s “Conceptual Scheme for Dropout From College” 149
Figure 2: Conceptual Framework 150

1

Chapter One: Overview of the Study
Men access and complete higher education at significantly lower rates than women. This
is true across various higher education sectors and student characteristics. This gap has important
implications for these men and our society. Men not accessing or completing higher education
are more likely to have the following negative outcomes: decreased access to the 21st century
job market particularly jobs with the highest median income (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,
2020); are less productive, working fewer hours, staying less engaged in the labor force and
more likely to be unemployed or underemployed (Sum et al., 2003); their earning capacity over
their lifetime is significantly reduced (Abel & Deitz, 2014; Sum et al., 2003) resulting in
decreased ability to create or sustain a family (Abel & Deitz, 2014); they are excluded from
many fields that are resistant to major economic disruptions decreasing stability in many aspects
of their quality of life indicators (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020); they are less likely to
marry (Parker & Stepler, 2017; Sampson et al., 2006; Harvard Medical School, 2019); more
likely to have children out of wedlock and less likely to be living with their children (Sum et al.,
2003); more likely to be involved in the carceral system (Berzofsky et al., 2014); and contribute
at significantly lower rates to the productivity of companies as well as the nation (Sum et al.,
2003). All of these factors coalesce to result in reduced access to the benefits of society in
general for young men, their partners and their children; and fewer benefits produced for society
at large by the men in question.
Each year the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center prepares the Signature
Report, Completing College reviewing college access, persistence, and retention rates for the
nation across various demographic identifiers. The 2013 report discusses how gender parity in
higher education was reached in 1980/81 and that a gap has emerged and grown since (Shapiro et
2

al., 2013). The report also cites Buchmann and DiPrete’s 2006 finding, that: “the female
advantage remains largest in families with absent or high school–educated fathers, but now
extends to all family types” (p. 518). While the above are from the 2013 version of the annual
report, the same disparity has been demonstrated in each subsequent iteration. Data retrieved
from the National Center for Education Statistics’ Integrated Postsecondary Education Data
System (IPEDS) reveal that from 2010–2020 American IHEs awarded 48.7 million degrees and
certificates. See Table 1. Only 41.2% of these were earned by men; whereas, the total population
of the United States is split in half with 50.5% female and 49.5% male (U.S. Census Bureau
QuickFacts: United States, 2021). That is, 8.6 million fewer degrees and certificates were earned
by men over the decade. During the same time IPEDS data reveals that this disparity existed
within each racial category they track. While college enrollment disparities are vastly skewed
between racial groups, enrollment disparities between men and women when compared with
peers within the same racial group retain this overall disparity though to varying extents; see
Table 2. Over the 10-year period surveyed the only group of males that enrolled at higher rates
than women within their own group were those categorized by IPEDS as non-resident aliens; this
group represented between 2.5–3.5% of the total national undergraduate student enrollment
during this 10-year period and bears further study. In every single other group, for every single
year, men both enrolled and completed at significantly lower rates than women in the same
category. This held true for all racial categories. Nationally, over this 10-year period, men
enrolled at an average of 12% less than women. In looking at racial categories individually,
Asian men fared best, falling 5% behind their female counterparts, followed by “Race/ethnicity
unknown,” at 6% behind. Then came Native Hawaiians or other Pacific Islanders at 9% behind.
White men occupy the fourth rung at 10% behind. These are followed by “Two or more races” at
3

–14%, Hispanic or Latino at –16%, American Indian or Alaska Native at –20% and Black or
African American at –22%. It must be noted that these averages may serve to mask the trend.
The numbers got worse for men in each category over the decade represented in Table 2, and the
2020 numbers are significantly worse than the 2011 numbers and the 10-year average. The
degrees and certificates awarded numbers paint an even bleaker picture. The years 2011–2020
saw 15% fewer degrees and certificates awarded to male students. In each racial group men were
behind women of the same group by double digits: 10% fewer Asian men; 11% fewer men
whose race/ethnicity was unknown; 12% fewer Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander men;
14% fewer White men; 19% fewer men with “two or more races;” 20% fewer Latino or Hispanic
men; 20% fewer American Indian or Alaska Native men and 28% fewer Black or African
American men. See Table 3. Again, while we see great disparities between racial groups, we see
that men in every single racial group fare much worse than women within their own group; and
this disparity grows following enrollment.
Another characteristic to analyze for effects on educational outcomes between men and
women is socioeconomic status. As a publicly available national data set that examined
graduation rates in conjunction with both sex and socioeconomic status together could not be
found, the California State University (CSU) system’s Graduation and Success dashboard was
used as a reasonable proxy (CSU Dashboards, 2021). The CSU consists of 23 campuses, serving
over 450,000 students per year (CSU, 2021). CSU campuses vary greatly in enrollment with
campuses ranging from just under 1,000 students to over 40,000 students. Most CSU campuses
range between an enrollment of 13,000 to 35,000 students (CSU Dashboards, 2021). Tables 4
and 5, show the varying 6-year graduation rates between male and female Pell recipients and
non-Pell recipients. Non-Pell recipients have higher graduation rates than Pell recipients (10.8%
4

higher for men and 10.3% higher for women). So, while the tables shows the variance in
enrollment and, more significantly, completion along the lines of socioeconomic status, they also
show that SES is not determining why men graduate at much lower rates than women; that
disparity holds rather steady at –8.1% for Pell recipients and –7.6% for non-Pell recipients. In
other words, female Pell recipients graduate at roughly 8% higher graduation rates than male Pell
recipients; and female non-Pell recipients also graduate at roughly 8% higher graduation rates
than male non-Pell recipients.
Student age is also an important variable for consideration. The findings of the National
Student Clearinghouse’s extensive enrollment and completion tracking efforts are presented by
Shapiro et al. in the annually recurring Completing College reports (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018,
2019). They found lower outcomes for male students across race, types of institutions,
attendance intensity (e.g., exclusively full time, exclusively part time, mixed) and various factors
in combination with one another. A review of their variable “age-at-first-entry” from their 2015–
2019 reports yields interesting, if complicated, findings. For traditional students, males enroll
and complete at lower rates than women. As age-at-first-entry rises, completion rates drop for
both groups, but more for women.
The effects of age-at-first-entry bears further study. While the data, itself, cannot
determine what factors related to age result in these differences, it does clearly demonstrate that
any “gains” made by male students as age-at-first-entry rises, are largely due to the precipitous
drop experienced by women as their age-at-first-entry increases. In consideration of this, it may
be in the interest of female students to encourage them to attend college immediately upon
completion of high school. Whether varying degrees of maturity, life responsibilities or other
5

factors play a role in mediating these differences by age, bears further study for both men and
women. See Table 6.
These data demonstrate that the primary variable to consider in terms of college
completion or graduation for men is sex. The variables of race, socioeconomic status and age-at-
first-entry are all appropriate for study. The impacts of race and socioeconomic status, in
particular, are generally the primary ones considered in relation to college access and completion
rates. The preceding tables and data analysis, however, reveal that for male students, the variable
of sex cuts across both race and socioeconomic status in nearly equal measure. Men are always
predictably behind. Thus, the primary variable to consider for lower male graduation rates is sex.
Clearly, these problems do not begin in college. Male students have worse outcomes
across the K–12 spectrum in terms of grades, testing, discipline, juvenile justice involvement etc.
(Farrell & Gray, 2019; Sommers, 2013; UNESCO, 2022). Thus, the disparities seen in higher
education are reflected across society at large. However, higher education takes it upon itself to
support students of all types who have struggled prior to entry into higher education; presumably
a similar attitude should be extended to male students if they too struggle prior to entry and
continue to struggle in college. These disparities beg the question, what are institutions of higher
education doing to address the problem? At the time of this study, we did not have an
empirically-based answer to this question. An extensive literature review revealed no studies that
have cataloged the number and types of support programs, efforts or initiatives practiced by IHEs
in direct and differentiated support of male students.
1
In fact, much of the retention literature
shies away from the question altogether, with few notable exceptions such as Windham et al.
(2014), who in studying community college retention found, “Gender was not only a significant

1
In Engaging College Men Kellom and Groth (2019) conducted a study of 88 Programs for the
Theological Exploration of Vocation (PTEV) funded by the Lily Endowment. Their study primarily focused on how
6

predictor of retention (p < .001), it was the highest predictor in the model. Females in this study
had a 94% higher chance of being retained than males” (p. 472). The current study aims to close
this gap in knowledge, which is important in understanding whether IHEs are addressing or plan
to address the problem and whether they value their male students sufficiently to engage in
practices aimed at closing this disparity.
The purpose of this study is to: determine what types of differentiated supports, if any,
IHEs provide their male students for increased retention; determine the nature of these supports;
and determine what components from the retention literature and from this study’s conceptual
framework are present and missing in these supports. While college access is also an important
area of research, this study seeks to determine what IHEs are doing with male students once they
have them.
This study proposes three hypotheses:
1. A small number of male differentiated supports for increased retention will be
identified. If a large number is identified, the majority of them will be neither
centrally organized nor funded by the university.
2. A very small percentage of identified programs will be evidence-based or contain
many of the concepts identified in the retention literature or this study’s conceptual
framework.
3. IHE planning documents will reveal little intention to specifically address the
problem of low persistence and graduation rates among male students.
To examine what institutions of higher education are doing to support their male students,
this study utilized qualitative document analysis, reviewing institutional websites and planning

non-differentiated supports better engage male students. While this is a valuable resource, it does not catalog the
types of supports this study aims to find.
7

documents of a representative sample of institutions across the three higher education sectors
that serve over 90% of Undergraduate students in the United States—public universities, private
universities, and community colleges. Although websites and existing documents limit what can
be known about the specific practices within higher education, the dearth of research in this
domain makes this a fruitful initial investigation.
The Larger Conversation
For at least two decades a sporadic public conversation has taken place about what is
broadly characterized as the “boy crisis.” As discussed above, much of the disparity in the
college years finds its roots in pre-college development, thus much of this larger conversation
has focused on boys and men, not just college men. Some common features of this conversation
follow:
• Both proponents and doubters of the “boy crisis” thesis reliably laud the gains made
both in society and education by women and girls through legal protections and
institutional policies (Corbett et al., 2008; Farrell & Gray, 2018; Feyton, 2022; Gurian
& Stevens, 2005; Sax, 2007; Sommmers, 2013).
• Doubters of the “boy crisis” most-often frame efforts to support boys’ unique needs as
a threat to the gains made by girls and women (Corbett et al., 2008; Feyton 2022;
Okopny, 2008).
• Data demonstrate that the percentage of college educated people has increased
significantly since the 1970s (IPEDS, 2022). This is true for both women and men.
• Data also demonstrate that this growth has been concurrent with the growth in the
percentage of jobs that require higher education—particularly high-growth, high-
stability, high-paying jobs (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020).
8

• Doubters of the “boy crisis” thesis redirect the question to race and class, not sex
(Corbett et al., 2008; Mathews, 2006; Rivers, 2006;).
• Proponents of the “boy crisis” thesis agree in some areas but have a wide range of
theses on the causes. An area of some agreement seems to be the overdiagnosis and
medication of ADHD (Farrell & Gray, 2018; Sax, 2007; Sommers, 2013).
• Doubters of the “boy crisis” thesis often present two arguments:
o Even though fewer men than women attend and graduate college, the total
number of men in college is still higher than it used to be.
o Efforts should be focused on wage-gaps instead of any efforts to support male
students—a zero sum analysis (Corbett et al., 2008; Feyten, 2022).
• Proponents of the “boy crisis” thesis lament a prevailing narrative of males as always
privileged and females as always disadvantaged as preventing any progress on the
issue (Sommers, 2013).
• Doubters often seem to be and sometimes state that they are ideologically motivated:
“In rebuking the major boy crisis arguments, I hope to provide feminist teachers with
the tools necessary to combat these arguments from colleagues, parents, and
administrators, and encourage the power of daily feminist activism” (Okopny, 2008,
p. 217).
Sommers (2013) takes the prevailing narrative head-on:
Schools that try to stop the trend, through boy-friendly pedagogy, literacy interventions,
vocational training, or same-sex classes, are often thwarted. Women’s lobbying groups
still call such projects evidence of a “backlash” against girls’ achievements and believe
they are part of a campaign to slow further female progress. (Sommers, 2013, p. 1)
9

One of Sommers’ most important contributions to the conversation was the forceful assertion
that the fortunes of men and women are not a zero-sum game. Authors such as Feyton (2022),
seemed to think that what is good for men is bad for women. The two “groups” are not in a state
of war. The reality is that in personal, professional and educational settings the norm is
collaboration between individual men and individual women; and that in most settings people do
not act as members of their sex group either in support of their own sex or in opposition to the
other sex group. If something is “good” then it is good for both men and women. There is no
such thing as a “good” thing that is bad for only one of the two groups. As Sommers (2013) put
it, “If our boys are in trouble, so are we all” (p. 3). In fact, Sommers contended that this concern
that addressing boys’ needs somehow takes away from girls’ needs is at the root of why we have
collectively ignored the issue for decades. Among other things, Sommers outlined the following
culprits mostly housed in elementary education: zero tolerance policies against rough-and-tumble
play or any boyish play that can be perceived as aggressive; the standardization of girl-typical
behavior as the gold standard of behavior in elementary schools; behavior being unintentionally
factored into grading by teachers which disadvantages boys (Cornwell et al., 2013); and the
decline of recess (Sommers, 2013).
Basing their case on extensive evidence of the specific negative effects of “dad
deprivation” on boys in particular, Farrell and Gray (2018) gave fatherlessness the figurative seat
at the head of the table: “The boy crisis’ primary cause is dad-deprived boys. Dad deprivation
stems primarily from the lack of father involvement, and secondarily from devaluing what a
father contributes when he is involved.” (p. 103, emphasis in original). They called on studies
and evidence ranging from neurobiology (the significantly shorter telomere lengths of dad-
deprived boys versus dad-deprived girls) to the specific roles that fathers play in boys’ cognitive
10

development to dads’ familial role as the primary boundary enforcer. Brown (2016) synthesized
literature on the specific negative effects of absence of a father in the home on boys as compared
to girls. She outlined considerable negative impacts that are more pronounced for boys than girls,
including less daily time spent in “human capital accumulating activities,” such as reading,
decreased likelihood of college enrollment and increased likelihood of delinquent behavior as
adults. Building from embodiment theory and an examination of various preindustrial societies,
Brown further described how the mother’s position within the family is solidified by virtue of the
pre- and post-natal relationship between mother and child, while the father’s role must be
socially and culturally constructed.
Leonard Sax, MD, PhD, outlined five factors resulting in what he called “Failure to
Launch” for young men (2007). Sax’s factors were changes at school, video games, medication
for ADHD and endocrine disruptors (for which he makes a strong, empirically supported case
about pervasive environmental endocrine disruptors originating primarily from plastics and their
specific impacts on boys). Recently researchers have made similar claims about the link between
endocrine disruptors and significant international decline of testosterone and sperm count
(Levine et al., 2017; Levine et al., 2022).
Reeves (2022) found the root of the problem succinctly, “Gender gaps in higher
education do not appear out of nowhere. To a large extent they reflect the disparities in the K–12
education system. Girls outperform boys at every stage, and in almost every subject” (p. 2).
Kelly Field noted, the bachelor’s degree gap between men and women now is larger than the
massive gap when Title IX was passed in 1972 (Field, 2022).
Many doubters of the “boy crisis” thesis (Corbett et al., 2008; Mathews, 2006; Okopny,
2008; Rivers, 2006) attempt to redirect the argument to race and socioeconomic status. While
11

these variables certainly correlate to vastly differential outcomes for certain groups and warrant
study in their own right, this redirection is a red herring belied by the outcomes observed in
college. College access rates vary significantly between racial groups; however, college
completion rates are consistently lower for men when compared to women within the same racial
category. This holds true for White and Asian men as well (Shapiro et al., 2013, 2015, 2016,
2017, 2018, 2019; Sum et al., 2003), a fact which has been known for at least 20 years (Sum et
al., 2003). These same disparities are also visible across the board in Table 2.
One of the most effective arguments against the doubters of the “boy crisis” thesis is that
their predictions are continually proven wrong. An example that encapsulates this trend follows.
In 2008 Okopny argued that an NEA study showed that “the overall gender composition in
institutions of higher learning is 51 percent female to 49 percent male. The report also reveals
that men outnumber women in Ivy League schools” (p. 219). While Okopny’s numbers were
wrong even for 2008,
2
if used as predictions of things to come, they were utterly wrong. The
2020 breakdowns are represented in Table 7.
And finally, the biggest argument against the doubters of the “boy crisis” thesis is that
most of their arguments are specific to the United States, while authors such as Farrell and Gray
(2019) pointed to a much larger phenomenon, “worldwide, boys are 50 percent more likely than
girls to fail to meet basic proficiency in any of the three core subjects of reading, math and
science” (p. 34). UNESCO’s 2022 Leave No Child Behind report painted a bleak picture:

2
IPEDS data for enrollment in 2007 and 2008 reveal that in both years men made up approximately 43%
of total undergraduate enrollment and women 57%. The same data show that enrollment of the Ivy league was as
follows: 50.02% male and 49.98% female in 2007; and 49.67% male and 50.33% female in 2008. These Ivy league
differences are negligible such that the only reasonable characterization would be that the Ivy league was 50/50 in
both 2007 and 2008. Source IPEDS.
12

In many countries, boys are at greater risk than girls of repeating grades, failing to
complete different education levels and having poorer learning outcomes in school.
Where previously boys’ disadvantage seemed most notable in high- or upper-middle-
income contexts at the beginning of the millennium, this has shifted and now includes
several low- and lower-middle income countries. Secondary education is where boys’
disadvantage is most prevalent. The right to education remains unfulfilled for many boys.
… While in all regions the largest share of out-of-school boys is concentrated at the upper
secondary level, in the Arab States and sub-Saharan Africa, a large proportion of out-of-
school boys (around a third) are also concentrated at the primary level. While globally,
girls remain less likely than boys to enroll in school, in many countries boys are at greater
risk of repeating grades, failing to progress and complete their education and not
achieving adequate learning while in school. At the global level, almost no country with
data has achieved gender parity at the tertiary level. The gender parity index data in
2019 for tertiary enrollment showed 88 men for every 100 women enrolled at tertiary
level. While previously boys’ disengagement and dropout was a concern mainly in high-
income countries, several low- and middle-income countries have seen a reversal in
gender gaps, with boys now lagging behind girls in enrolment and completion. In 73
countries less boys than girls are enrolled in upper-secondary education. Boys are more
likely than girls to repeat primary grades in 130 out of 142 countries with data, indicating
their poorer progression through school. … Despite boys’ clear disengagement from and
disadvantage in education in certain contexts, there are few programmes and initiatives
addressing this phenomenon holistically, with system-level, gender specific policies even
13

more rare. Scarce policy attention has been given to gender disparities in education that
disadvantage boys. (p. 14)
Based on the findings of Windham et al (2014) in conjunction with the other findings
presented here, the most important takeaway is that sex is a primary variable—perhaps the
primary variable—to be considered in higher education attainment research and practice. The
variable of sex is neither incidental nor fungible nor can be subsumed under race, SES or any
other student characteristic. The data is unambiguous; the boy crisis is real, all protests to the
contrary notwithstanding. From this point the question becomes, what are IHEs doing about it?
Higher Education’s Response
The current accepted method of addressing disparities in higher education is to provide
specified protections and differentiated supports to groups that lag behind the total population.
This can be seen at every level of higher education activity in the nation, from the legally
mandated protections afforded under Title IX and Brown v. Board of Education of 1954 to the
differentiated supports offered at institutions to marginalized subpopulations such as first-
generation students, specific ethnic or racial groups etc. Given this widespread approach, the
natural assumption is that if male students are lagging behind in all indicators at all levels, that
IHEs will employ a similar approach to serve them. As previous efforts have demonstrated,
doing so requires acknowledgement and understanding of the unique qualities of the group to be
served. For this reason, the unique qualities of male students must be taken into consideration in
designing supports. This is discussed in greater detail in the conceptual framework. Whether
IHEs should employ differentiated supports or a more holistic approach is explored in greater
detail both in the conceptual framework and the discussion section.

14

Chapter Two: Conceptual Framework
The conceptual framework within which the retention of male students in higher
education must be considered is largely the same as it is for all students. Much of this framework
was originally identified by Tinto (1975; 2006). In this section, I will modify Tinto’s framework
by incorporating Astin’s (1999) concept of student involvement, and introducing other practical
concepts of engaging students that operationalize the abstract theories of retention.
Within this framework I will first draw on Tinto’s and Astin’s theories and describe the
broad commitment that organizations must make to students to support retention; I will then
discuss the granular detail necessary for IHE administrators to implement activities supportive of
student retention (both those present in and absent from the retention literature); and finally, I
will describe the specific activities and approaches necessary to support male student retention,
in particular.
Tinto’s PIE, Astin’s Slice and Organizational Commitment
While he did not call it this, Tinto (1975) described what the social work field refers to as
a PIE model or person-in-environment (Williams et al., 1989) where people and systems interact
and impact one another. This PIE formation makes Tinto’s retention model profoundly useful as
it is squarely grounded in the fundamental aspect of human interactions—they are all, always, in
some ways social. Understanding several theoretical components grounded in this PIE model is a
first step in unlocking greater retention among students: (a) students are social beings; (b) faculty
and staff are social beings; (c) IHEs are social organizations; (d) campus communities are social
environments; (e) the academic components of IHEs (e.g., classroom interactions, coursework,
study groups, honors societies etc.) all have social components. While Tinto did not delineate
these points individually, his PIE model either explicitly or implicitly acknowledges these
15

aspects of the student/IHE relationship (Tinto, 1975). Tinto’s model begins with what the student
brings to the institution, including family background (e.g., socio-economic status, parental
education levels, urban/rural), individual attributes (e.g., sex, measured ability per testing or high
school GPA, personality characteristics such as levels of impulsivity), and pre-college schooling
(e.g., characteristics of the high school, socio-economic composition of the school). Tinto’s
model is laid out visually in Figure 1. Some combination of these result in a level of goal
commitment and institutional commitment within the student (1975):
• Goal commitment: the individual’s level of commitment to their own academic goal.
• Institutional commitment: the individual’s level of commitment to achieving their
academic goals within the specific IHE.
The beginning of Tinto’s model—namely what the student brings upon entry to college—
is an important reminder that what happens in college is a smaller piece of a larger problem that
sees male students performing at lower rates in academic, social and behavioral indicators
throughout the K–12 span (Farrell & Gray, 2019; Sommers, 2013; UNESCO, 2022). These are
all important areas of inquiry; however, the current study focuses on what IHE’s do to support
male students while they have them. Tinto’s entering student then interacts with the IHE and
progresses.
Carrying these levels of commitment, the student and IHE interact together along two
lines, an academic system and a social system (Tinto, 1975). Within the academic system factors
including “grade performance” and “intellectual development” are at play. Within the social
system, factors including “peer-group interactions” and “faculty interactions” play major roles.
These interactions result in varying levels of academic integration and social integration (1975).
16

• Academic integration: Tinto (1975) argued this can be “measured in terms of both his
[the student’s] grade performance and his intellectual development during the college
years” (p. 104). These two items can be understood together as the student’s objective
ability to meet the IHE’s expectations plus the degree to which the student identifies
with the institution and its academic norms.
• Social integration: Tinto described “peer-group associations,” “extracurricular
activities,” and “faculty interactions” (p. 106).
Tinto’s concepts of academic and social integration are translated into practice in the high
school college advising arena where high school practitioners—in assisting students to select an
IHE—often consider very closely aligned concepts of “match and fit,” (Allen & Schulz, 2020).
“Match” roughly corresponds to the likelihood of a student to successfully integrate
academically, and “fit” roughly corresponds to the likelihood of a student to successfully
integrate socially (Allen & Schulz, 2020). Once students are in their IHE and have interacted
with the system for a period of time (a semester or even a month) these interactions affect the
student’s goal commitment and institutional commitment recalibrating them to a new stasis.
According to Tinto, the recalibrated goal commitment and institutional commitment ultimately
inform the decision to continue or discontinue education, thus making those first months or year
of HE very important. Astin (1999) may be interjected here within this slice of the PIE model
where the student and IHE are interacting with one another. Astin (1999) broke his concept of
student involvement into “five basic postulates:”
1. Involvement refers to the investment of physical and psychological energy in various
objects.
2. Occurs along a continuum.
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3. Has both quantitative and qualitative features.
4. Student learning and personal development [are] directly proportional to the quality
and quantity of student involvement in that program.
5. The effectiveness of any educational policy or practice is directly related to the
capacity of that policy or practice to increase student involvement. (Astin, 1999, p.
519)
This final postulate makes explicit the two-way relationship between the student and IHE
as well as the IHE’s responsibility to increasing student involvement and thereby, learning and
personal development. Tinto (1975) lays out the broad framework, Astin (1999) delves into the
specifics of student involvement, and these together provide general guidance to HE researchers
who have used the framework to build empirically-based knowledge about what works to retain
students. However, the retention literature base alone remains insufficient for actual higher
education planning. Figure 2, which represents my conceptual framework, completes the picture
by inserting both Astin’s concept of student involvement and my detailed “ingredients” for
practice into Tinto’s model. The retention literature provides general guidance on how IHEs
should relate to students along this model. Braxton and Mundy (2001) use Tinto’s framework to
summarize three points guiding how IHEs should relate to students:
• An enduring commitment to the students served by [the] institution.
• An institutional commitment to the education of all [emphasis added] students.
• The integration of all [emphasis added] students into the social and academic
communities of a college or university. (Braxton & Mundy, 2001, p. 94)
Analyzing these recommendations through the PIE lens we see the IHE as a social
organization and environment that has willingly accepted its students into its organization. In so
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doing it has explicitly taken on the responsibility of supporting the success of its students, “all
[of its] students” (Braxton & Mundy, 2001, p. 94). In fact, transactionally speaking, students—or
the taxpayer on their behalf—have paid for that relationship and should rightfully expect the
IHE’s proactive fulfillment of its responsibility. Again, the PIE lens, apparent in both Tinto’s and
Astin’s theories, reminds us that this is not a one-way street. The students for their part have
responsibilities as well. They must assiduously address themselves to the task of education and
to integrating into the social environment. Neither the IHE, nor the student can be successful on
their own. They must both make a commitment to one another. However, given that the IHE has
myriad resources at its disposal—far more than the average student—I contend it must bear a
greater portion of the onus in this two-way interaction. Achieving such broad goals requires an
organizational commitment to each individual student. In my own clinical experience, such a
commitment is applicable to a wide array of non-profit organizations, and without such
commitment to all clients served, broad-range success cannot be had.
This Organizational Commitment (OC) must become the guiding star of the organization
(see Figure 2). In the absence of OC, institutional inertia results in the organization primarily
focusing on and catering to the students who are already most likely to be successful. Under the
guidance of the OC, administrators (both in the faculty and staff realms) need the granular detail
of how to achieve the broad recommendations of the retention theories. While the retention
literature most often states what IHEs should achieve or aspire to in order to demonstrate a
commitment to all students and to integrate them into “the social and academic communities,”
the specific recipes necessary for organizational planning are often missing. Before delving into
those recipes, I will first describe some extant types of programs, then describe approaches and
19

tactics that are supportive of all students. Finally, I will describe approaches and tactics
imperative for male students, specifically.
Types of Retention-Focused Student Supports
While this study aims to examine the extent to which IHEs are aware of and directly
addressing the problem of male student attrition, it is useful to delve into some of the types of
retention-focused programs present in the literature. These are not aimed specifically at male
students, but may provide insights into what programs may be found through this study. IHEs
throughout the nation attempt various programming, services and supports to increase student
retention. While these efforts span a wide array of approaches, Braxton et al. (2006) found in
Indiana that the vast majority of these efforts are neither theoretically grounded, nor rigorously
evaluated—a finding that likely holds true for much of the nation. Thus, given the deep well of
theoretical knowledge, but shallow puddles of evidence-based programmatic knowledge present
in the literature, it is likely that administrators and program managers—in the event they are
prone to seek guidance from the literature in their planning—find little in the way of concrete
guidance to support implementation. Kitchen et al (2021b) identified the same gap: “much of the
literature on these initiatives has focused on whether they have an effect on a particular student
outcome…rather than focusing on how educators deliver support” (p. 630). In a pre-publication
work Fulcher Dawson et al. (2020) agreed, “there remains a lot we do not know. Additional
research is needed to shed light on what features of these programs are the most critical and what
types of students benefit the most from which types of programs” (p. 21).
Nonetheless, various broad program and service categories can be identified in the literature:
• Study skills courses: These include courses designed to teach and improve study
skills needed for college (Windham et al., 2014).
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• Student orientation programs/courses (Derby & Smith, 2004; Hossler et al., 2009).
• Summer bridge programs: These are aimed at freshmen coming in from high school
to college (Murphy et al., 2010).
• A mission-focused approach to life: This includes various programs or services,
where staff support students in identifying their life “calling,” “vocation” or life plan
and aligning their academics toward that goal. The literature most often finds these at
religiously affiliated institutions (Hossler et al., 2009; Kellom & Groth, 2018).
• Learning communities (Maccariella et al., 2019; Patton et al., 2006; Tinto, 2001).
• Wrap-around projects: These encompass a broad range of programs that attempt to
address multiple student needs through a set of various coordinated services. The
needs and services often include: proactive advising or academic case management
sometimes supported by automated “early warning” systems (Fulcher Dawson et al.,
2020; Sommo & Ratledge, 2016); financial needs unmet by other financial aid such
as transportation-related, child care or emergency costs (Fulcher Dawson et al., 2020;
Sommo & Ratledge, 2016); mentoring (Fulcher Dawson et al., 2020); direct academic
support such as tutoring or supplemental instruction (Fulcher Dawson et al., 2020);
during school employment assistance and or career development assistance (Fulcher
Dawson et al., 2020).
• Student-faculty interaction (Patton et al., 2006)
• Retention-focused, stand-alone non-profit programs (Fulcher Dawson et al., 2020):
The specific programming of these may take various forms, and once identified
individually may fit under one of the other categories described here. It is indicated
21

here as a separate category because it seems to be less common; most supports seem
to be in-house.
Perhaps one of the most important insights from the literature is that there is no silver
bullet to support student retention (Braxton & McClendon, 2001; Hossler et al., 2009). Instead,
many authors suggest that institutions should consider and tackle the problem holistically
(Braxton & McClendon, 2001; Braxton & Mundy, 2001; Hossler et al., 2009; Tinto 2001). While
there is no strict consensus on what “holistic” practice looks like, these authors pointed to
integration between student affairs and academics, and significant roles for setting the agenda at
top leadership levels (Hossler et al., 2009). While examples of holistic, campus-wide practice are
rare in the literature, there are analyses of differentiated—aimed at a specific subpopulation—
programs with the express aim of increasing retention. Some of these focus on a specific aspect
of programming while others do implement holistic approaches, albeit for a subset of students.
Fulcher Dawson et al. (2020) reviewed eight such programs. These programs ranged in their
scope, structure and target population. Most featured some sort of academic case management,
prescriptive mentoring, advising or “coaching,” and small financial components (sometimes
conceptualized as supports, other times as incentives). The target populations ranged from
incoming freshman to adult learners with a specific job-related skill goal. The programs in this
study ranged significantly yet all shared in common the fact that they were tack-on approaches,
as evidenced by the descriptions provided by the researchers. While some may have been holistic
in their approach (within their own context and toward their subset of students), none utilized a
holistic approach on the part of the IHE toward all students. Some were programs of the IHE,
while others were stand-alone non-profit organizations.
22

An approach often used by IHEs to support specific populations of students is providing
cultural or affinity centers. Examples of these include differentiated centers for first-generation
students, Latino students, LGBTQ students, undocumented students and African American
students (Sanders, 2016). Such centers are often based in a physical space on campus which is
open to students and provides various services for the targeted population. Mentoring, whether
formal or informal, is often a component of practice in such centers.
The Ingredients
Tinto’s and Astin’s necessary distillation of the multivariable, complex reality of
individual students navigating IHEs allow us to see the big picture consisting of large moving
pieces and areas of interaction. The very nature of both of these PIE models reminds us that all
interactions are always social, thus mediated by psychosocial phenomena. For IHE
administrators to understand how these big moving pieces actually interact with one another, we
delve into the very specific ingredients of good practice as it relates to IHE staff and faculty
working to support student retention. These ingredients—this recipe, as it were—are missing
from the retention literature and must be pieced together from other research sources, human
development theory and practical experience.
Theoretical Grounding for Practitioners
Underlying the practitioner’s work should be a broader understanding of the psychosocial
development of the individuals they serve. Two foundational theories supporting this
understanding as relates student support are Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development and
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
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Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development
A cursory understanding of Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development, and in
particular, the stages of “identity versus identity confusion” and “intimacy versus isolation” are
foundational for higher education practitioners. Erikson conceptualized a sequential hierarchy of
psychosocial conflicts or crises corresponding to specific age ranges. Successful advancement to
the next stage (the next conflict or crisis) requires positive resolution in the previous stage. This
understanding, imparted in training, must be shared with the explicit direction and expectation
that the purpose of the knowledge is not for engaging in dime-store psychology. Rather, the
purpose is to develop understanding, among practitioners, of the psychosocial conflict individual
students may be dealing with. For the majority of first-time, full-time students—those coming
directly from high school—the Eriksonian crisis appropriate to their age range is identity versus
identity confusion (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010). A successful resolution to this conflict entails
making a deliberate search for identity. Thus, proactively pursuing one’s education, taking
responsibility for performance, and successfully navigating the college landscape help students
build their identity toward a positive resolution of the conflict. Advisers, counselors and faculty
supporting students from a strengths-based perspective (described below) will be beneficial in
this pursuit beyond the immediate academic goals. That is to say, if a practitioner to student
interaction positively impacts a student’s pursuit of their education, the practitioner is also
positively impacting that student’s deliberate search for identity—thereby supporting them
toward a positive resolution of an important psychosocial developmental milestone. Of course,
this same support by practitioners also reinforces connections within Tinto’s concepts of
academic and social integration and Astin’s concept of student involvement.
24

For serving both these traditional-aged freshman students, and non-traditional students an
understanding of the Eriksonian conflict of “intimacy versus Isolation” is foundational. A
positive resolution to this conflict entails finding stable intimate
3
relationships in various
settings—school, work, family, romantic relationships etc. Various studies have identified
meaningful connections on campus such as learning communities as supportive of retention
(Maccariella et al., 2019; Patton et al., 2006; Tinto, 2001); likely an underlying link in much of
this research is connected to progress toward a positive resolution of this conflict.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
A functional awareness of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as it relates to students is a key
element for practitioners. Maslow’s well-known model prioritizes needs in a hierarchy where the
levels higher up the pyramid cannot be achieved until the needs of the lower level are met. The
levels in ascending order are: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-
actualization (Mcleod, 2018). Some student support programs acknowledge that they must first
take into account the students’ first tier needs, providing for the physiological barriers that may
prevent academic success before moving on to achieving Tinto’s social and academic integration
or Astin’s student involvement. A recent example of a program that took students’ needs into
account is CUNY’s Accelerated Study in Associate Program or ASAP. Among Sommo and
Ratledge’s (2016) findings from ASAP are components that are implicitly Maslowian. ASAP’s
4

features draw upon a Maslowian understanding in their design to anticipate first and second tier

3
The term “intimate” is not limited to romantic intimacy here, rather it relates to close, trust-based,
authentic relationships within dyad or group settings (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010).
4
Sommo and Ratledge (2016) provide a succinct synopsis of ASAP’s work: “ASAP requires students to
enroll full-time and take developmental courses immediately and continuously; offers comprehensive support
services such as high-touch advisement, career development, and tutoring; offers financial support that includes
tuition waivers for students in receipt of financial aid, textbook vouchers, and monthly MetroCards for use on public
transportation; and provides structured course enrollment to support academic momentum, with block and
consolidated course schedules and support for course taking in winter and summer sessions.”
25

Maslowian needs among students. Consequently, in recognition of the relationship between these
needs and retention, ASAP has the ability to help students meet these needs by providing, for
example, transportation and textbook vouchers. Many of the recommendations in Braxton and
Mundy’s (2001) compilation of “Powerful institutional levers to reduce college student
departure” are connected implicitly to one of the levels in Maslow’s hierarchy. Most obviously
these are related to lower level needs—financial aid, day care, food pantries etc. Other
recommendations from Braxton and Mundy (2001) climb up Maslow’s pyramid. For example,
when they suggested engendering a sense of belonging, they have moved out of physiological
needs into the first level of psychological needs. Indeed, Tinto’s (1975) prime constructs of social
integration and academic integration live within the “love and belonging” and “esteem” strata of
Maslow’s pyramid.
Thus far I have intentionally used the term “practitioner” to be inclusive of counselors,
advisers, student affairs personnel and faculty. All of these individuals, under the umbrella of
organizational commitment must first see themselves as practitioners in relation to their students.
Faculty involvement is best understood as being suffused with all of these elements versus being
seen as a discrete concept. Tinto (2001) believes “that the best retention program is always a
strong academic program that actively involves students in learning, especially with others” (p.
3). He goes on to lament that “Most retention programs are managed by, indeed staffed by,
student affairs personnel…most professors have been reluctant to participate in these new
efforts” (Tinto, 2001, p. 4). Recent research shows that his lamentations may not be in vain. In
reviewing the Equity Plans of 42 of California’s 116 community colleges Harris et al (2017)
identified 924 proposed activities, none of which focused on “Faculty development and
programs for institutional change” (p. 18). Whether blame lies with the faculty, themselves, is
26

another question. In my estimation, organizational leadership must make clear at the outset that
such involvement is a central component of faculty duties. That is to say, job descriptions,
success criteria and performance evaluations must all explicitly include faculty duties toward the
broader OC and the very specific tasks that are entailed in successfully achieving student
retention. For most extant IHEs this is far easier said than done in consideration of significant
standing interests, focus on research productivity, unions etc. Newly designed or newly
implemented IHEs ignore these lessons at their peril.
Strengths-Based Perspective Is a Mind Frame and a Tool Set
Strengths-based Perspective (SBP) is a mind frame from which practitioners approach
students, but more importantly, it must be operationalized into a concrete set of tools. Below I
will describe SBP following it with concrete tactics that practitioners can employ.
Strengths-Based Perspective
The term strengths-based perspective (SBP) has been applied in a number of ways by
various authors and practitioners in settings ranging from mentoring to school counseling.
Examples include Hammond and Zimmerman (2012) who contrast SBP to a deficit approach and
break SBP down into nine components. While their formulation elucidates SBP, it is perhaps too
granular for the practitioner’s use. Galassi and Akos (2007) explore how SBP is specifically
applied in various facets of school counseling. This exploration may be specifically useful for
counselors and advisers, but a broader approach is necessary to inform all practitioners within an
IHE. Throughout my clinical experience, the most effective formulation of SBP has been the one
forwarded by Appelstein in his work No Such Thing as a Bad Kid (1998; revised 2018). In all
likelihood, it has been his meld of practical experience as an MSW and analytical prowess that
gives his view of SBP such power and relevance to the current topic. I will rely, primarily on
27

Appelstein’s conception here. Viewing students from an SBP mind frame entails unconditional
positive regard. That is, the practitioner does not make their care and understanding contingent
upon the student’s behavior (Appelstein, 2018). SBP is an overarching mind frame from which
practitioners must address students. In this conceptual framework SBP is situated within Tinto’s
“faculty Interactions” and my added space of “Interactions with other student-facing
professionals” (see Figure 2).
SBP focuses on student strengths and builds from them. This is not to say that
maladaptive behaviors are not to be judged, and the student “can do no wrong.” As appropriate
the practitioner should judge maladaptive behaviors, but be clear to draw a distinction between
the behavior and the individual (Appelstein, 2018; Arzumanian, 2007; Arzumanian & Funes,
2019; Lore, 2001). An SBP mind frame involves identifying attributes unique to the individual
student. Some attributes may be conventionally viewed as strengths while others are
conventionally viewed as deficits or faults. For example, a student may be reticent to participate
in class. One view is that they are disengaged. Another view may be that they have become
versed at protecting themselves from potential rejection or ridicule. In another example, a student
has been identified by a number of teachers as rude or obnoxious. Another view is that they are
good at affecting people. If they learn to control this skill, they can apply it to a career where it
can be useful. Investigators often need to be able to push peoples’ buttons to get at the truth
(Appelstein, 2018). The majority of human behaviors are only understood in relation to their
context; the same behavior can be good in one context but bad in another. For example,
interrupting others during conversation can be acceptable at low frequency, while it might,
nonetheless, be annoying. Interrupting at high frequency is maladaptive in the broader American
cultural context. However, failing to interrupt during an emergent situation (such as a fire or
28

other imminent hazard that the speaker is unaware of) is even worse. One of the major points of
SBP, is helping students identify when they can adaptively use skills or traits that come naturally
to them but are maladaptive when used unknowingly or at high frequency.
The SBP mind frame is not about being nice and reframing just anything as a positive. It
is about seeing how a “fault” may instead be used as a strength and supporting the student to see
and leverage that as well. SBP can be practiced along a spectrum of personality types and
dispositions ranging from highly agreeable and nurturing to stoic to tough-love or what Gurian
calls aggression nurturance (2017). SBP training is not an admonishment to practitioners to love
and cherish their students after the fashion of a doting mother. Instead, it is a method by which
practitioners can value the humanity and support the growth of each individual student. They can
do this from a range of dispositions in a range of personal styles. SBP can be operationalized in a
series of technical tools that are used to provide direct support. In the following section, I will
review each of these components individually.
Strengths-Based Tactics
Many of the following ingredients are missing from the higher education retention
literature but can be pieced together from other literature sources and practical experience. I offer
the following explanation as to why much of this is missing from the retention literature—it is
partly the same explanation for why much of it is missing from practice among professionals
serving people in their late teens to early adulthood, where I have been working as a professional
for two decades. Understanding this difficulty may warrant a slight digression into youth work.
Broadly defined, “youth work” entails professionals working with youth ages 6–18 to support
personal development and growth through mentoring, after school programing, outreach,
religious organizations, scouting, sports etc. In my experience both locally (Los Angeles) and
29

nationally, the age range when youth are least likely to be engaged in such activities is from 12–
18. In fact, most organizations have significant difficulty designing programming that is
attractive to youth in this age range. While the Eriksonian (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010) transition
to the conflict of identity versus identity confusion is difficult for individuals, it seems that the
same transition is even more difficult for organizations to handle. In general, a small percentage
of youth work organizations have a high success rate with engaging youth in this age range. This
is pertinent because the vast majority of incoming college freshmen are recent high school
graduates aged 17–19. The overlap between youth work organizations serving older teens and
young adults, and IHEs is the age range. That is to say, this age range seems to present particular
challenges for practitioners in both fields as evinced on one hand by the relative lack of
participation of this age range in youth work programming and on the other hand by low
retention numbers in IHEs throughout the nation. In what follows, I summarize approaches taken
by youth work practitioners to successfully engage and support students in this age range. These
are also listed under “Strengths-based tactics” in Figure 2.
I See You. It is the practitioner’s responsibility to “see the gift” presented by the student
(LoRe, 2001). First, this entails seeing the individual that presents, not the one that is expected.
Second the practitioner must recognize the humanity and intrinsic value of the person as an
individual with inalienable rights, agency and self-determination separate from any group
identity (Arzumanian, 2007). And ultimately, the specific talents presented by the individual
must be recognized (within the mind of the practitioner) and then reaffirmed verbally to the
student.
Affirmation First, Advice Second. While ‘I see you’ is the first step. It can be built upon
as a bridge to problem solving. The next step in the process is recognizing where “seeing” fits.
30

The practitioner when assisting a student—particularly one who is describing a challenging
situation—must first identify the “gift” (trait, talent, noble desire) the student is displaying that is
specific to the context of the described situation, affirm that gift and then proceed to
collaborative problem solving (Arzumanian, 2007). This is the essence of “Affirmation first,
advice second.” A more intuitive yet less effective approach—the one most often employed by
practitioners—is hearing the problem and proceeding directly to solutions. This approach is
ineffective for a number of reasons:
1. It ignores the student’s positive traits, talents or noble desires that have already been
displayed in the current situation, thus extending the student’s mental gap from the
current situation to the desired outcome.
2. It externalizes the student’s locus of control.
3. It glosses over the all-important task of building relationship (Arzumanian, 2007).
4. It diminishes the authenticity of the interaction (Arzumanian, 2007; LoRe, 2001).
Conversely, affirming the gift first addresses each of the above in the following manner:
1. It identifies an existing strength that is germane to the situation, thereby narrowing
the student’s mental gap from current situation to desired outcome (Appelstein,
1998).
2. It recognizes that useful strengths are present within the individual and helps to
internalize the student’s locus of control as called for in the literature (Astin, 1999;
Braxton & Mundy, 2001). And internal locus of control is positively associated with
academic achievement (Findley & Cooper, 1983). While they do not name locus of
control as a specified concept, all of the social-psychological interventions reviewed
by Yeager and Walton (2011) connect implicitly to bolstering internal locus of control
31

within the intervention participants. In each case, the interventions they reviewed
resulted in durable positive effects for students’ academic outcomes.
3. The relationship is strengthened because the student feels closer to the individual who
sees their strengths. As the PIE lens reminds us, these are always social interactions
(Arzumanian, 2007).
4. I give you a problem; you give me a solution. This is a transaction. I give you a
problem; you see that I am a worthy individual; you trust me to solve my own
problem with your guidance. This results in growth. By working through the problem,
I learn I have the capability to do so in future settings. The process described in this
bullet is the youth work analogue to the instructional concept of scaffolding
(Kirschner & Hendrick, 2020). At the outset the level of support is high, while
independence is low, and as the practitioner assists the student while also engaging in
cognitive apprenticeship (Kirschner & Hendrick, 2020) or making visible to the
student the thinking process behind actions, the student’s ability to engage in the
problem solving independently (or independently initiate collaborative problem
solving with trusted others) increases. Over time the student’s independence increases
and the requirement for support decreases.
Collaborative Problem Solving. The practitioner must refrain from giving the student
the solution (Arzumanian, 2007; LoRe, 2001). Outsourced solutions are poison pills. If they
work, they worked due to the practitioner’s expertise and authority, not the student’s. This
contributes to an external locus of control—an undesirable outcome (Findley & Cooper, 1983). If
they do not work, there is no responsibility for the shortcoming that falls to the student—again
an external locus of control. Instead, the practitioner, through an iterative, collaborative process,
32

should guide the student toward their own solution. While the practitioner’s experience and
expertise are important in this process, the student’s agency is of equal or greater importance.
One simple protocol for collaborative problem solving involves a series of five questions:
1. What is the challenge? (e.g., What caused you to drop this class?)
2. When does this usually occur?
3. How does this benefit you?
4. What does this cost you?
5. What can you do differently in the future? (LoRe, 2001, p. 6)
What, Not Why. Notice that the question “Why” never appears in the protocol above.
Practitioners must get out of the habit of asking “why?” (LoRe, 2001). In fact, all of the
questions in the above protocol could be combined into the single question, “why?” Doing so,
then puts all of the weight of the mental work on the student. Thus, why is a blunt tool, when the
sharp probing tool kit of the well-trained practitioner is called for. “Why didn’t you register for
fall semester?” “I don’t know.” Whereas the above protocol breaks “why” down into bite-sized
pieces, helping the student identify hidden aspects of the challenge. In the example above “What
happened that caused you not to register for fall semester?” might prompt a more informative
response such as, “I got my grades for summer.” The practitioner can then go down the protocol
to work with the student.
Your Affect Has a Huge Effect. How the student-facing professional presents with their
outward demeanor or affect is of great importance. How the student is greeted, the level of
enthusiasm readily evident in the face, body language, verbiage and vocalization of the
practitioner will all communicate to the student a significant amount of information including the
practitioner’s feelings about the student, judgment of the student, dedication to their job, current
33

mood, state of mind, level of competence, level of caring etc. Here, again, we must venture
outside the retention literature. Seidel et al (2010) found that simple facial expressions of
happiness versus anger result in automatic approach or avoidance behaviors among college
students. The practitioner’s facial and physical affect contribute to whether the student will
choose to avail themselves of the services of the practitioner, whether they will listen, return, or
recommend the practitioner to fellow students. Here is demonstrated the minute, direct student-
practitioner interaction that affects what Tinto (1975) discusses as the student’s levels of
integration resulting in changing levels of institutional and goal commitment, and Astin (1999)
discusses as the two-way impact of student involvement. Here, also, is demonstrated what
Braxton and Mundy (2001) describe, “Faculty, staff, academic advisors, and administrators
should attend to the holistic development of the student—both academic and co-curricular—by
promoting growth and learning not only in the classroom but in the university community as well
(derived from Nora)” (p. 100). Appelstein (2018) sums it up thus: “From a neurological
perspective, presenting in a positive manner opens up pathways in kids’ brains, triggering
biochemical reactions that enhance performance. Psychologically, it instills hope” (p. 49). While
Appelstein is referring to work with adolescents, it is no less true for work with adults. Again,
this is not to imply that all practitioners must have a similar personality. More stoic individuals
are still able to communicate a strengths-based perspective from their own individual approach.
The key is understanding what the tool of the education professional is. In addition to his own
hands and mind, the mechanic’s tools are the wrench, the jack and the diagnostic computer; he
must ensure they are in good working order to get his job done. On the other hand, the educator
is himself the tool. That is to say, the educator must understand that professionalism entails
presenting the tool—the self—in an intentional way. How the tool looks to the student, must not
34

be accidental, not influenced by personal caprices. Professionalism in education entails
maintaining the appropriate state of mind, as well as its outward expression. That may sound
difficult, but that’s the job.
All of the above described perspectives and activities are appropriate for all students.
Given the focus of this study, some pertinent male, female differences and how to provide
differentiated support for male students are described below.
Male, Female Differences of Import to Practitioners
Awareness of male, female differences is important both at the planning level and at the
execution level in order for higher education practitioners to address the male graduation crisis.
Understanding of such differences will inform how programs are designed at the administrative
level, how practitioners are trained and how services are executed at the student-facing
practitioner level. A cursory review of some studies in this area will help demonstrate this. Lippa
(2010) noted “In personality research, the dominant trait taxonomy is the ‘Big Five’ model,
which proposes five relatively independent ‘super-factors’ of human personality: extraversion,
agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience” (p. 1101). In
reviewing multiple studies with a combined sample of over 800,000 he concludes, “For the
people-things dimension of interests, the results...are clear, strong, and unambiguous. Men tend
to be much more thing-oriented and much less people-oriented than women” (Lippa, 2010, p.
1105). I present how such differences impact the work of practitioners. For example, the lower
relative people orientation for men demonstrated by Lippa (2010) plays into the higher degree of
“Relationship Responsibility” that practitioners must take on in relation to their male students.
Whereas Saad’s (2013) elucidation of how men and women, on average, engage advertising and
consumer products in predictably different ways is directly applicable to higher education
35

“marketing and outreach” as well as differential messaging of offers to help as later discussed in
the conceptual framework.
Consistently, studies such as Lippa’s (2010) identify that men and women are much more
alike than they are different. However, persistent, universal differences (reoccurring across
cultural contexts) can result in vastly different life outcomes. Stoet et al. (2018) upon analyzing
STEM academic achievement and STEM field employment (N = 475,000 across 67 nations)
found that while boys and girls have similar scientific literacy, men and women are represented
differentially in different scientific fields and that these disparities grow, instead of diminish in
societies with greater gender equality. Their basic finding is that when women and men live in
stable economies buttressed by laws and institutions that value and promote gender equality, they
are free to choose fields that interest them the most. With such freedom, naturally occurring
differences are accentuated. Otherwise stated, the risk for choosing a field that is not at the top of
the earnings chart is reduced in robust economies. Such egalitarian societies produce fewer
women engineers than societies where gender equality is not valued by society and upheld by
law (2018). These findings are supported by Falk and Hermle (2018) who in studying 80,000
individuals in 76 countries found that women’s and men’s preferences varied greater in nations
with greater GDP and gender equality. Nations with lower GDP and less gender equality showed
relatively little differences in the preferences of men and women.
As noted above, these tendencies have significant implications for program
administrators and practitioners. A strengths-based perspective and on organizational
commitment would require IHEs to wrestle with the difficult question of how these and other
differences manifest in classrooms and impact students. Administrators and practitioners must
use this knowledge to plan their work accordingly.
36

Practitioners’ Activities to Support Male Students
In recognition of the fact that the average male student is at much higher risk of not
completing college than the average female student, practitioners must engage in the following
strategies to effectively address the needs of the average male student (see Figure 2). Prior to
discussing these items individually an important point must be made about how Strengths-based
perspective applies. As discussed above, all of the following recommendations must be
undertaken within a strengths-based perspective. Absolutely essential to maintaining an SBP
with male students is refraining from attempts to redefine or reframe their masculinity. The
essence of SBP is in accepting students for who they are and helping them to build from their
strengths. Put more explicitly, SBP aims to build strengths, not “fix faults.” Treating male
students’ inherent masculinity as toxic, or attempting to design services meant to reprogram their
masculinity contradicts SBP, is ineffective (if not detrimental) and describes a deficits-based
perspective.
Relationship Responsibility (RR). Initiating and maintaining the relationship is fully the
responsibility of the practitioner. This represents a significant paradigm shift for most faculty and
nearly all academic counselors. In IHEs over a certain number of total enrollment, counselors are
not expected to outreach to their students in directed or targeted ways. However, certain specific
retention-focused programs employ models that take on some aspect of the RR approach. One
such example is a comprehensive college transition program described by Kitchen et al (2021a)
where the term used is proactive advising. They describe required mid-semester grade checks.
This is not the same as RR, but the explicit onus on the practitioner to create the connection is an
important shared feature. Fulcher Dawson et al., (2020) describe a number of different types of
retention-focused programs that share commonalities with RR. The key is that practitioners know
37

that they are responsible for both initiating and maintaining relationships with students. In my
experience training thousands of staff and volunteers, never has any of them described the
experience that male students are more likely to initiate and follow up on relationships than
female students are. Instead, all trainees have always expressed that female students are more
likely to initiate and maintain relationships. In light of this in conjunction with Lippa’s finding
above, I contend that the concept of RR is important for all students, but essential for male
students. Under a broader OC, this ubiquitous practical knowledge may not be ignored, but
instead must guide practitioners’ work. RR can be summed up in the following two sentences.
The practitioner is responsible for initiating the relationship—not the student. The practitioner is
responsible for following up effectively—not the student.
Marketing and Outreach. Bringing male students in the door requires marketing and
outreach. The term ‘marketing’ is used here intentionally because it is targeted to specific
audiences and used judiciously. Higher education communication is generally designed without
the end-user in mind and distributed haphazardly. Getting students to participate is essentially a
marketing campaign. Unlike traditional marketing, education work is founded in authentic
relationships, but the marketing pieces must be present nonetheless. Businesses design marketing
campaigns specific to their customers; aesthetics, messaging, product placement, packaging are
all intentionally and predictably different between products aimed primarily at women and those
aimed primarily at men (Saad, 2011). Again, this is an unexplored ingredient in the retention
literature. However, volumes of marketing literature line the virtual shelves of each institution’s
archives, and can be employed with as much success as any for-profit. While delving into the
finer details of marketing is beyond the scope of this conceptual framework, thankfully most
IHEs have business school faculty that can consult in this matter.
38

Give Them What They Want so You Can Give Them What They Need. Drawing in
students to complete necessary activities using various hooks is a tried and true method among
practitioners—myself included. The “true” component of that description only comes in when it
is practiced with the other tenets of this framework in full play. Under such practice a financial
aid workshop, for example, can become a communal event supporting social integration while
also achieving the very practical, necessary aim of financial aid application. “No Pie Until You
Apply” is a financial aid workshop my organization has practiced at dozens of Southern
California high schools, collectively drawing tens of thousands of high school students to
complete their financial aid applications and enjoy free pizza.
Problem Solving, Not Self-Disclosure. Male students are more likely to respond to
collaborative problem solving as opposed to enforced self-disclosure (Shelley, 2017). For
example, Shelley—a practitioner, not a researcher—comments that a welcome/orientation event
that features chair circles where participants engage in self disclosure may, on average, be
impactful, welcoming and foundational for women, while simultaneously being intimidating,
distasteful and off-putting for men (2017). Shelley continues:
But if male students are asked: “What do you see as your biggest challenge to achieving
success at college, and how do you think you can address it?” it reframes the milieu from
problem-admitting to problem-solving. Other men in the group will join in to
troubleshoot. As trust builds, the more personal may follow. Male students will likely
seek help at a higher rate if support systems are not perceived as interactions that require
instant self-disclosure. (Shelley, 2017, p. 18)
Shelley’s approach exemplifies an acceptance of average differences in men and women that
should have significant implications for practitioners.
39

See the Target, Hit the Target. Once the practitioner and student have determined what
the student’s goal is,
5
the practitioner can support the student by maintaining a strict focus on that
goal and keeping the student accountable to his own stated objective. This is not to be confused
with blind adherence to a goal in the face of changing priorities or interests. Often, students may
reassess and realign their goals. It is the practitioner’s responsibility to determine (with the
student) when a student is changing goals because their priorities or interests have truly changed
as opposed to merely settling for less. Where this becomes particularly supportive for male
students is when the practitioner is able to help the student break the target down into component
objectives, with specific timelines and objectively measurable progress.
“Let Me Help You.” Not “Do You Need Help?” In my clinical practice directing a
program supporting over 10,000 students a year, we see that simple changes of phrase can result
in significant differences. An adviser asks a male student, “Do you need help with that?” and the
response most often is, “No. I got it.” Whereas, when an adviser says to a male student, “Let me
help you with that. Please open your application,” the student response is often “Sure. Thanks.”
By asking the student if he needs help, he is put in a position where he must admit ignorance or
weakness to access support. By telling the student to allow the practitioner to assist, the locus of
control is put back into the student, while the support is also successfully delivered.
Summary
I have argued here that within a modified Tinto plus Astin framework, organizations must
commit themselves to all students, and practitioners must address themselves to students with
specific training and background knowledge that is most likely to support retention for all

5
The student’s academic goal is not to be assumed. An important aspect of SBP is that the practitioner
ascertains (not assigns) the student’s goals. Within HE this is most important in community colleges where students
have a wide variety of goals they may be reaching for (Wild & Ebbers, 2002).
40

students, along with further specific support styles that are likely to support retention for male
students. This approach works for all students because it is: (a) predicated on an organizational
commitment to all students, and; (b) and due to its strengths-based perspective, is designed to
mold itself to the specific needs of each individual student.

41

Chapter Three: Research Methods
As discussed above, men complete higher education at significantly lower rates than
women. To determine what IHEs are currently doing to support male student retention, as well as
what they plan to do in the near future, this study employed a qualitative document analysis
approach that reviewed IHE websites for evidence of support to male students. The study
addresses the following research questions:
1. What types of differentiated supports do IHEs provide their male students for
increased retention?
2. What is the nature of these supports?
3. What components from the retention literature and this study’s conceptual framework
are present and missing in these supports?
Methodological Approach
Within higher education one commonly employed method of supporting students in need
has become providing differentiated supports. That is, supports that are targeted to a specific
subpopulation of the institution’s total enrollment. Given this pervasive practice, one logical
response to lower male graduation rates would be to provide differentiated supports to male
students. Conversely, if an institution were to deem that differentiated supports were not
necessary, an alternate logical response would be to outline within planning documents (e.g.,
strategic plans) what aspects of the IHEs work would address the crisis of male graduation.
Therefore, the first steps in understanding higher education’s response to this problem are to
ascertain the frequency and types of support IHEs provide male students, and their view on this
problem as expressed in their planning documents. To do this, a qualitative document analysis
methodological approach was employed, reviewing the websites and planning documents of a
42

randomly selected sample of IHEs to find the answers to the research questions (Salkind, 2017).
During this analysis, supports in three broad categories were recorded and sorted as described.
These categories were: differentiated supports aimed at male students; differentiated supports
aimed at other subpopulations; and non-differentiated supports.
Sampling
A representative sampling of U.S. IHEs was necessary to conduct this study and produce
generalizable findings, despite the qualitative methodological approach of document analysis.
The unit of analysis in this study was the IHE, and the purpose of the study was to determine
what supports the IHEs make available to students. To develop the sample, The Integrated
Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) was selected as the data source for number, type
and enrollment of institutions of higher education. Querying IPEDS for all institutions of higher
education in the United States with their 2020 fall full-time undergraduate enrollment resulted in
a total population of 6,130 institutions serving 16.3 million undergraduate students. Ninety-three
percent of these students (15.2 million) were served by just less than half of these institutions, all
of whom fell within only three of the nine sectors identified in IPEDS. These three sectors are:
“Public, 4-year or above,” “Private not-for-profit, 4-year or above,” “Public, 2-year” (coded
within IPEDS as 1, 2 and 4 respectively). This makes sense as these sectors make up what we
normally think of as the higher education landscape—public universities, private universities and
community colleges. This study’s sampling frame was delimited to the 3,019 IHEs in these three
categories because they serve 93% of undergraduate students in the nation.
As each of these three sectors have varying levels of resources, funding portfolios,
admission criteria and serve students with different goals, they were treated separately in
sampling; that is, the sectors may have qualitative differences in average levels of support they
43

offer students. The enrollment in these sectors also varies widely. Of the 15.2 million
undergraduate students served in these three sectors in 2020, 50% were enrolled in public
universities, 19% in private universities and 31% in community colleges. Below are the total
number of institutions and students for each category in 2020:
• public, 4-year or above: 757 IHEs serving 7.6 million undergraduate students
• private not-for-profit, 4-year or above: 1,343 IHEs serving 2.83 million students
• public, 2-year: 919 IHEs serving 4.76 million students
Per personal communication with Dr. Dennis Hocevar, Sample Size Calculator
(https://www.calculator.net/sample-size-calculator.html) was used to determine the number at
which saturation would be reached per sector. The following terms were entered for each sector:
• confidence level: 95%
• margin of error: 5%
• population proportion: 1%
• population size:
o public, 4-year or above = 757
o private not-for-profit, 4-year or above = 1,343
o public, 2-year = 919
This returned a sample size of 15 for Sectors 1 and 4 and 16 for Sector 2. Thus, the total sample
size was 46.
Employing SPSS, the sector-specific populations were initially randomly sampled for the
exact number of needed institutions in each sector. This produced samples that contained
institutions inappropriate to the given sector. For example, Sector 1 included several institutions
that had the term “community college” in their names. Each of these was reviewed to determine
44

why they had turned up in the Sector 1 sample. The presumed reason is that they each granted a
small number (less than six) of bachelor’s degrees. In order to avoid this problem, SPSS was
used to pull a sample of approximately 5% from each sector, resulting in an average sample pool
of 50 IHEs per sector. These sample pools were reviewed for potentially inappropriate
institutions that were then removed. The removed institutions fell into the following categories:
• community colleges coded as universities (Sector 1)
• single-sex IHEs (Sector 2)
• IHEs with total enrollment less than 30 (Sector 2)
• IHEs with no enrollment data entered in IPEDS (Sector 4)
The remaining institutions were then randomly selected using SPSS to arrive at the final sample
of 46 (15 in Sector 1; 16 in Sector 2; and 15 in Sector 4). See Tables 8, 9 and 10 for the full
sample with enrollment numbers compared to sector-wide and three-sector national enrollment
numbers.
Data Collection Methods
Data were collected in three phases:
• Phase 1: Direct review of IHE websites.
• Phase 2: Analysis of IHE planning documents.
• Phase 3: Google search of IHE name plus search terms.
Each phase attempted to determine the following. First, what supports existed in the following
three categories: differentiated supports aimed at male students; differentiated supports aimed at
other populations; non-differentiated supports. And second, how these documents conceptualized
male students, if they were treated at all. The data collection protocol for each phase was as
follows:
45

• Phase 1: Each school’s website was browsed for an average of 33 minutes (using
Google Chrome). During this process all supports falling into the three categories
were recorded. When planning documents were encountered during this process, they
were saved for review in Phase 2. If planning documents were not encountered during
the natural course of this phase, they were specifically sought using the Google search
engine. In total, this phase lasted 25 hours.
• Phase 2: Planning documents found during Phase 1 were reviewed to determine
whether they addressed the male, female graduation disparity or revealed intent to
address it. Documents five pages or shorter were read in full. Documents over five
pages were searched for the terms in Table 11. The sections in which the terms
appeared were read and coded per the conceptual framework.
• Additionally, as documents were reviewed, other key terms emerged as potentially
relevant and were thus added to the codebook (see “emergent search terms” in Table
11). An average of 11 minutes was spent on each IHE planning document for a total
of eight hours and twenty minutes in this phase.
• Phase 3: The terms listed in Table 12 were entered into www.google.com. An
average of 31 minutes was spent on each IHE for a total of 23 hours in this phase. The
results were treated in two ways:
§ All results were counted and sorted into the broad categories of results that
emerged during this process (e.g., athletics, differentiated student supports,
etc.)
§ Relevant links were followed. Any student supports not encountered during
Phase 1 were recorded per the protocol described in Phase 1.
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Data Analysis
During data collection, differentiated supports aimed at various subpopulations were
counted using the codes in Table 13.
This study’s conceptual framework identified several types of evidence-based retention-
focused programs. The intention, during this study was to use the list of a priori codes in Table
14 to track these types of programs during the search; however, this did not happen. During the
search some programs called “orientation” that nonetheless did not match the descriptions
provided by Derby & Smith (2004), Hossler et al. (2009) or others in the literature were
encountered. Additionally, identity-based centers were encountered, but did not have a retention-
focus. Besides these, very few evidence-based retention programs were found. Thus, these codes
were not used very much at all.
To the extent they were discernible, programming and service elements were coded into
the a priori codes listed in Table 15. The nature of the supports were described. In cases where it
was evident, notation was made of where programs were housed within the IHE.
Ethics
There were few ethical considerations as this study was descriptive, and was determined
by the USC Rossier School of Education and the USC Institutional Review Board guidelines to
be a “non-human subjects research study,” which does not necessitate IRB approval. Given that
publicly available websites and documents were reviewed, there were no human participants.
Limitations
It was beyond the scope of this study to explore all avenues of support that universities
may have been directing toward male students. Thus, some activities may have been missed by
the chosen methodological approach. For example, exploring the existence and nature of
47

informal supports such as faculty mentoring were beyond the scope of this study. However, such
informal supports are nearly always non-funded. This study was concerned with funded supports
and focused on traditional, funded, specified avenues by which IHE’s generally support student
sub-populations. A further limitation is the possibility that some actions undertaken by IHE’s to
address this disparity may not have been publicized on their websites. This potential limitation is
largely mitigated by the prevalence of transparency as a key value among IHEs and the desire to
capture and communicate their efforts. Thus, it can be presumed that most, if not all, funded and
institutionally valued student support activities were in fact featured on their websites.
Delimitations
Only IHEs within the following sectors were reviewed, as these collectively served 93%
of the nation’s undergraduate student population:
• public, 4-year or above
• private not-for-profit, 4-year or above
• public, 2-year
By necessity, the amount of time spent on each website was delimited; however,
measures were taken to ensure that each site was reviewed thoroughly; and, importantly, that the
time spent on each site far outstripped the amount of time web designers anticipate having with
an average audience member.
An additional delimitation of this study is that I was looking across higher education
sectors but irrespective of fields of study or major. Future research could look at access and
retention rates by major; such an examination was beyond the scope of this study.
48

Credibility and Trustworthiness
My initial contact with the issues explored in this study comes from my 20 years of
clinical experience in youth work, during which time I have directly assisted over 2,000 teenage
youth in street outreach, case management, mentoring and after school settings, overseen
mentoring programs serving over 1,500 mentoring matches and developed and overseen
programming that has directly and intensively assisted over 70,000 students to go to college. At
the mid-point of this career, I have undertaken a doctorate of education at the University of
Southern California, Rossier School of Education, an experience which has reminded me to treat
all thoughts—my own included—with a healthy dose of skepticism. These are credentials that I
may present by way of credibility and trustworthiness. Ultimately, however, I do not expect the
reader to trust me. That is why I have taken steps to design the study in such a way that the
average reader could replicate a slice of it with a few minutes of downloading data from IPEDS
and surfing the internet.
Various facets of this study lend themselves to easy verification. First, all of the data sets
cited in this study are publicly available. And due to their historic nature, they are static. Thus,
the reader may pull the same enrollment data for the same years and verify whether the numbers
represented here are accurate. Second, the planning documents reviewed in this study are also
static documents, are usually public, and can easily be reviewed by the reader for comparison to
my findings. Third, school websites are also public documents and can be reviewed by the reader
at any time. The primary limitation here is that unlike the data sets, the websites are not static
and will change over time. Given the limited attention to the issue of low rates of male student
graduation over the past decades, it is my prediction that this specific aspect of these websites is
unlikely to change significantly in the decade following the publication of this study.
49

Given my initial hypothesis, as stated above, I have also worked to counteract any latent
confirmation bias by quantifying findings to the extent possible. Systematic counting of themes
in all three phases allowed me to objectively compare the frequencies of codes and themes to my
expectation. An example of how this worked in practice is that during data collection I thought I
was finding a relatively low number of differentiated supports for various subpopulations.
However, upon data analysis, when counting the supports I had found, I realized that my initial
impression was wrong—I had found a high number of differentiated supports. Another example
of my expectations being disconfirmed relates to evidence-based practice. Despite warnings
from Braxton et al. (2006) and Kitchen et al. (2021b), I nonetheless did expect to find some
indications of evidence-based retention programming. I was surprised at how little I found.

50

Chapter Four: Findings
This study’s methods enabled me to successfully answer the research questions:
1. What types of differentiated supports do IHEs provide their male students for
increased retention?
2. What is the nature of these supports?
3. What components from the retention literature and this study’s conceptual framework
are present and missing in these supports?
In the following section I will present the findings from the website, internet and
planning document review of the sampled IHEs.
Differentiated Programs for Male Students
This study found only one differentiated program aimed at male students; however, it
could not be classified as a support aimed at “increased retention,” which was the specific focus
of this study as per the research questions.
The Men’s Ministry at Gardner-Webb University (Sector 2, private) was listed among a
number of ministries on the “Student Life” page of the private university. The entirety of the
information presented on this group follows: “Ministry allows students in small groups to meet
for fellowship, prayer, accountability, and Bible study as well as outdoor adventures such as
camping trips. To get involved, contact [employee name]” (Gardner-Webb University, n.d.,
Student Ministries section). There was insufficient information to determine whether Gardner-
Webb Men’s Ministry featured components of this study’s conceptual framework.
The answer to RQ1 “What types of differentiated supports do IHEs provide their male
students for increased retention?” is, none. More precisely, this study did not find any
differentiated supports aimed at male students for increased retention within the representative
51

sample of IHEs. If Gardner-Webb’s Men’s Ministry were generously counted as a sought type of
support for male students, this study’s quantitative finding would be that less than 0.74% of the
nation’s undergraduate students attend a university or college that provides differentiated
supports to its male students for increased retention. This estimation is based on comparing the
total population at Gardner-Webb University (2,071 enrolled in fall 2020) against the sample’s
total enrollment of 281,554. As it stands, since Gardner-Webb’s program cannot be counted, even
0.74% is an overestimation. The actual rate is lower than this, but is not zero, given the out-of-
sample programs that were found.
Differentiated Programs for Male Students of Color
While no retention-focused supports were found for male students at large, a very small
number of supports were found for male students of color. These programs were so few, that
each one will be treated individually in the sections below. Whether each program explicitly was
aimed at retention—the focus of this study—is also discussed below. This information is also
summarized in Table 16.
Sector 1: Public Universities
University of California, Davis. Perhaps the one program most closely aligned with this
study’s conceptual framework was Improve Your Tomorrow (IYT), a stand-alone non-profit
explicitly aimed at increasing the number of young men of color accessing and completing
college. IYT featured several component programs, working with various ages of students. One
of these was IYT University. Per personal communication, IYT University supported 34 UC
Davis students (or 0.28% of UC Davis’ male population) at the time of this study. This resource
was well hidden, and only encountered at minute 40 of searching the Davis website (during
Phase 1). IYT was not a program of UCD and all indications are that it did not receive funding
52

from UCD or the UC Regents (according to the organization’s 990 form of 2019 accessed via
guidestar.org). It is nonetheless included here per the description provided by Fulcher Dawson et
al. (2020) of stand-alone programs that either partner with IHEs or simply serve their students.
IYT University featured mentoring, monthly group activities, goal setting, time management,
mental health, “brotherhood activities,” which include physical and competitive activities, career
development and internships. An overview video about IYT University describes a series of
supports focused on retention while in college and direct internship and career supports for
transitioning into the workforce (IYT University, 2021, Overview Video). This connects with the
concept of “see the target, hit the target” and “collaborative problem solving” from this study’s
conceptual framework. A program alumnus also touted the effect of the IYT community holding
him accountable, again connecting with the concept of “see the target, hit the target” where the
professional works to hold the student accountable to their stated goals. IYT seemed to achieve
this in a holistic, communal way, with pressure for accountability coming from multiple
directions. One of the co-founders further expanded on this point, stating, “At the foundation of
what IYT is, is brotherhood” (Improve Your Tomorrow, 2022, Meet the Michaels video). As
another alumnus said, “I believe the magic sauce that IYT has is just being able to first build
those relationships with students” (IYT University, 2021, Alumni Video). These concepts bleed
into each other. The relationship building the alumnus touted is the same concept of relationship
responsibility in this study’s CF. Such relationships facilitate the collaborative problem solving
and goal setting that IYT explicitly addresses. The fact that brotherhood is seen as a foundational
virtue of the organization and its purpose, reflects a strengths-based perspective toward male
students—that their unique style of relationship is important and supportive. The fact that
physical and competitive activities are included as a core component further reflects a strengths-
53

based perspective on the students’ maleness (Gurian, 2010; Farrell & Gray, 2019; Lewis, 2011).
Such trusting relationships (or brotherhood) in an affirming environment then lend themselves to
enforcing accountability (see the target, hit the target), all of which may
6
result in increased
levels of social and academic integration (Tinto, 1975) and likely student involvement (Astin,
1999).
It must also be noted that as a stand-alone organization, IYT has more publicly available
material than an average component program of an IHE might have. That is, their entire website
is about their program, whereas the rest of the webpages discussed here are just one component
of an IHE’s larger website. This facilitated a fuller analysis of IYT’s model in relation to this
study’s CF.
The other male-focused program found on the UC Davis website is a representative
example of what many such webpages looked like, sparse. The webpage of the UC Davis Black
Leadership Ambassadors for Culture and Knowledge (B.L.A.C.K.) program provided the below
description, application links and two short mentoring guidance documents:
(B.L.A.C.K.) is an ambassador (mentorship) program established by the Black males of
the UC Davis African Continuum group. Our goals for this ambassadors program are to
provide Black male students with the knowledge, skills and abilities they need to
successfully adjust and transition to campus life at UC Davis. The keys to making this
ambassadors program successful will involve the guidance and leadership of all Black
male faculty and staff. (B.L.A.C.K., n.d., para. 1)
The webpage did not describe what this program does, but two linked mentoring guidance
documents do give some insight into the program—Managing a Successful

6
”May” result because IYT is a stand-alone program. Thus, it is possible that the benefits of the improved
relationships and integration might not extend to the IHE, but stay local within IYT.
54

Relationship, (B.L.A.C.K., n.d., Documents section) and Keys to Being a Successful Mentor
(B.L.A.C.K., n.d., Documents section). Based on my own experience developing, implementing
and managing mentoring programs for over 1,700 mentoring matches, these documents, though
short, provide appropriate guidance for mentoring relationships. If used in conjunction with
extensive training, these documents could help mentors in providing effective mentoring support.
It is important to note here that this guidance is for volunteer mentors, not for professional
institutional actors that are providing support in relation to an articulated organizational goal. As
such, the fact that there is little overlap with this study’s CF is not an indictment of this program,
but simply a result of a different programmatic design. The primary CF element that was
observed was “See the target, hit the target” in guidance such as where mentors are advised to
“Help them to clearly define objectives…think about how they might reach their objectives with
or without you” or “Challenge your mentees.” One area hints at a positive conceptualization of
masculinity, “Help them to list three basic needs that they have in their lives (e.g., less stress,
more responsibility, more challenge, more respect)” (B.L.A.C.K., n.d., Documents section). The
idea that more responsibility, challenge and respect would be conceptualized as needs, and as
positive ones at that, is in strong alignment with traditional conceptualizations of masculinity and
its positive attributes and outcomes. Encouraging the young men to take on greater responsibility
and challenges, thereby earning greater respect, is very much aligned with a strengths-based
perspective, which is not simply concerned with making people feel better, but actually helping
them be better (Appelstein, 2018).
B.L.A.C.K. rounds out UCD’s programs for male students. However, an external website
described the Men Against Rape Program at UC Davis, but this program was not found on the
55

UCD website. As was often the case during this study’s data collection, webpages for male
focused programs were defunct, had broken links or provided very little information.
University of California, Los Angeles. At the University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA) some promising leads ultimately turned up nothing. The UCLA website featured The
Black Bruin Resource Center which contained a link to: https://therapyforblackmen.org/. This
organization was based in NY but boasted a network of therapists and life coaches across all 50
states. It was likely not a non-profit organization as the donations page indicated, “Donations are
not tax deductible.” The Black Bruin Resource Center provided a number of resources and
events under its mission to, “uplift, support, and inspire the UCLA Black and African Diaspora
Community. With the goal of cultivating community, family, and power” (UCLA Black Bruin
Resource Center, n.d., para. 1). No differentiated supports for Black male students were evident
on its website.
UCLA also had The Black Male Institute (BMI), housed in the Center for Transformation
of Schools. The Institute seemed to be focused primarily on research, education, evaluation and
advocacy. One of BMI’s videos described mentoring undergraduate students in becoming
researchers (UCLA Black Male Institute, n.d., Video section). This is the only facet of BMI’s
work that may qualify for inclusion in this study, but as it was not retention-focused, nor
differentiated for males, it was not analyzed in relation to this study’s CF. As UCLA was the
largest IHE in this study’s sample, these three resources are mentioned for thoroughness’ sake;
otherwise, the conclusion of this study is that UCLA did not provide any male differentiated
supports for increased retention.
Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma City. The Phase 3 web search turned up the
Male Initiative for minority men. While there was very little information on the webpage, it
56

seems that this program was actually at OSU, Still Water, not OSU OC. By the terms of this
study, it should not be included here because it was not at the campus included in the sample;
rather it was at a sister campus. However, given the dearth of programs, its short description is
provided, but it will not be counted among the programs found in the representative sample:
“The mission of the Male Initiative shall be to cultivate relationships among-st [sic] the minority
men on campus in order to improve retention and graduation rates, to develop professionalism
and to become valuable pieces to the functioning of society” (Oklahoma State University, n.d.,
Mission section). This program stated a focus on improving retention and graduation.
Unfortunately, like many other such programs for male students of color, the webpage was rather
sparse when compared to its contemporaries aimed at other populations, and very little was
discernible from the available information.
Towson University. Towson University’s Man 2 Man Program (M2M) returned the
greatest number of results both in Phase 1 (found number of times on the website) and Phase 3
(came up in search results for the specific IHE and came up sometimes during searches of other
IHE’s). The program’s sparse webpage described a staff-led support group for men of color:
Man 2 Man is a peer program geared toward men of color at Towson University.
Facilitated by [employee names], this community serves as a confidential space for male-
identified students of color to develop a better understanding of themselves and others in
the context of gender, race, culture, and social pressure.
Meetings explore how the experience of masculinity in today’s society shapes how we
think, feel, and relate to others, as areas of growth, strength, and unity are discussed. This
support group will meet every Monday from 3:30–4:30 pm in the University Union room
322 starting February 14, 2022 (Man 2 Man, n.d., para. 1).
57

From the above descriptions (and their promotional videos), M2M seems to be a program
facilitated by professional staff, including components of mentor-like relationships and important
peer-to-peer support components. They meet regularly in a central location on campus. In a news
article a Man 2 Man student echoed sentiments heard from IYT students,
I have made so many great friends and mentors that I know are always supporting me and
have my back. ... I now have a big group of people who I know will hold me accountable,
support me, and love me. (Stansbury & Smelkinson, 2022, para. 13)
According to this student’s experience, M2M aligns with this study’s CF concepts of “see the
target, hit the target” as he stated “I now have a big group of people who I know will hold me
accountable, support me, and love me.” This indicates that not only is goal setting or goal
identification a component, but holding the students accountable to those goals is a component.
Furthermore, the “support me, and love me” component at the end of his statement speaks to an
overall SBP nature of the M2M milieu. Potentially, the concept of relationship responsibility can
also be read into his comments; or at least it is his perception that the “friends and mentors…are
always supporting me and have my back” (Stansbury & Smelkinson, 2022). Beyond the analysis
of this student’s testimony, insufficient evidence was available to determine to what extent M2M
approaches students from a strengths-based perspective overall. Housed under Towson’s division
of Student Success Programs, it can be presumed that one of the goals of M2M is to support
greater retention.
Man 2 Man was the only program of its kind found at Towson. However, one other
finding of note came up. A private conference organization that tours campuses, Just Heal Bro
(JHB) was an event aimed at men of color. JHB does not meet the criteria of inclusion in this
study because it is neither a program, nor of the IHE, nor focused on retention. It is nonetheless
58

mentioned here due to the dearth of sought program types and due to one of its interesting
aspects, but it was not be counted in the total count of this study’s findings. Towson University
was a stop on JHB’s tour in April of 2022. The conference seems to have possibly employed a
strengths-based perspective as evinced by some of its speakers such as Jason Wilson—author of
the 2019 book, Cry Like a Man—who advances a positive view of masculinity, which includes
emotional intelligence and self-acceptance. Again, an important caution here, is that this was not
a program of the university, and thus did not really contribute to the findings of this study. It is
included, only due to the dearth of sought programs and because of the inclusion of Jason
Wilson, whose positive masculine analysis would be a good contributing factor to a strengths-
based perspective informed program.
The Sector 1 sample contained only three programs aimed at minority male students:
Improve Your Tomorrow (an external program) supporting young men of color at UC Davis;
B.L.A.C.K a program by the faculty and staff of UC Davis supporting black male students at UC
Davis; and Man 2 Man a student success services program supporting men of color at Towson
University.
Sector 2: Private Universities
Pace University, New York City. Pace University had two differently named programs
for males of color that appeared to be identical, except for their names and locations on different
campuses. The Westchester Campus’ program was called the Urban Male Initiative and featured
an almost identical description to the NYC campus’ ALMA. As NYC was the campus included
in this study’s sample, only ALMA will be discussed here.
Housed in Multicultural Affairs, Community-Building Programs, ALMA was described
as “a Community for Black & Latino Men” on the NYC campus:
59

Designed to facilitate the retention, scholarship, graduation and leadership of historically
marginalized males. Representing the diversity of the New York City area, we are a
collective of committed faculty and staff who have all come together for one reason: to
ensure an enriched experience at Pace University…As young men of color and emerging
scholars, we know your potential as future leaders in your respective communities as well
as the global arena…services…include: One on One mentoring; Access to research,
internship, conference, and travel opportunities; Discussion/rap sessions; Guest speakers;
Community service volunteerism; Assistance with Graduate School Application Process;
Extracurricular Activities (Film screenings and more). (Multicultural Affairs:
Community-Building Programs, n.d., para. 1)
The description shows that the program does attempt to provide a number of activities to
support students in various ways–mentoring, graduate school assistance, professional
development opportunities, etc. It was difficult to determine the program’s funding or centrality
within the institution. It is housed in Multicultural Affairs, but the description’s characterization
of a “collective of committed faculty and staff who have all come together for one reason” is
difficult to understand. The term “collective” does not generally refer to a centrally organized
and funded program. Nor is the coming together of faculty and staff generally associated with
such. But these statements could be more aspirational than descriptive. Ultimately the nature of
its funding and organization could not be strictly identified. No further information was found on
ALMA, except for an invitation to a drum circle. As such, this program could not be analyzed in
relation to this study’s CF.
Gardner-Webb University. Phase 3 (internet search) revealed a possible program for
males of color at Gardner-Webb University that did not come up during Phase 1 (website
60

review). The university news announcement in December, 2021 titled, “GWU Student Success
Receives Grant from North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities” touted a $5,000
funding allocation to begin a mentoring and peer mentoring program called iBelong (Gardner-
Webb University, 2021, News section). Again, as this study is interested in centrally funded and
organized programs, it is clear that a funding allocation of $5,000 is insufficient to provide for
any professional staffing, sufficient marketing or other components of a student support program.
No further information was found about this program. It was not confirmed whether the program
in fact existed at the time of this study.
The Sector 2 sample contained only: one verifiably extant program aimed at minority
male students: ALMA at Pace University, NYC; and one allusion to an unverified mentoring
program at Gardner-Webb University.
Sector 4: Community Colleges
Sector 3 is missing from this study because it consists of “Private for-profit, 4-year or
above” and does not serve a large percentage of undergraduate students. These sector numbers
are how the sectors are coded in IPEDS.
Normandale Community College, Minnesota. Black Men SIRtify was a program
formed at Normandale Community College in Fall of 2021 (SIRtify, n.d., para. 1). SIRtify was
not found during Phase 1 despite spending 20 minutes on the school’s relatively small website. It
was, however, the second result after searching ‘Normandale Community College’ ‘men’ during
Phase 3, and in fact came up 50 times during Phase 3. Starting in Fall 2021 and seeming to have
fewer than 10 students at the time of this study, this relatively new and relatively small program
did seem to share some commonalities with this study’s CF. They described themselves as
follows, “The mission of SIRtify is to recruit and support Black, African American, and African
61

men into Elementary and Secondary Education pathways.” The website goes on to describe the
following services that “SIRtify will provide:”
• academic support
• leadership training
• professional support
• cultural competency training
• international summer experience
• professional mentors
• tailored advising to ensure successful transition into a 4-year program
• annual scholarship of up to $10,000 covering all tuition, fees, books, and supplies,
plus a contribution toward cost of living. (SIRtify, n.d., Mission section)
While only tangential associations to this study’s CF may arise from the program
description, more is understood from other materials. In a promotional video a SIRtify student
stated, “It feels like someone is guiding you. It feels like someone is there for you; showing you
the obstacles, how to pass them, how to not let them stop you” (City of Bloomington MN, 2022,
City of Bloomington). This student’s experience is indicative of a program that follows the tenets
of “I see you,” “collaborative problem solving,” and “see the target, hit the target.” The student’s
feelings of being guided, being shown obstacles and how to overcome them and having someone
“there” for him are most often achieved in programs through authentic relationships. These are
relationships where the practitioner engages in the SBP practices of “I see you,” recognizing the
humanity and intrinsic value of the person as an individual with inalienable rights, agency and
self-determination and separate from any group membership or identity. Collaborative problem
solving is gleaned from the student’s characterization of being shown obstacles and “how to pass
62

them” in relation to the idea of guidance. Guidance is not the solution, it is a path to the solution,
but the recipient must still make the journey. Additionally, the talk of obstacles and how to
overcome them is very much aligned with “see the target, hit the target.”
A news report video clip featuring another student showed how the “I see you” facet of
this study’s CF played a role in his education and his desire to become an educator (Yoo, 2022).
The student’s statement elucidates the reciprocal nature of the “I see you” concept:
I can’t explain it but the fact that my advanced placement biology teacher was a 50 year-
old Black man who listened to jazz, understood where I came from, knew the
neighborhood I grew up in and could easily relate to me. I think that made a ton of
difference. (Yoo, 2022, para. 2)
When a practitioner sees the humanity and intrinsic value of a student, it implicitly indicates that
they see a likeness of themselves in the student, as if to say, “like me, you are a human of value
and worth.” In this student’s case, having an instructor who shared some important
commonalities with him, helped him to feel “seen.” By seeing himself in his instructor, he felt
that the instructor had a similar relationship with him, “[he] knew where I came from” and
“could easily relate to me.”
SIRtify seems to be aimed at both traditional and nontraditional students. The large
number of news pieces linked from their website also demonstrates the program’s understanding
of the importance of marketing, connected to this study’s concept of “marketing and outreach.”
Unfortunately, despite the promise of the program’s intentions, the program seemed to have
fewer than ten students, thus limiting its reach and potential. However, its housing under
Diversity and Inclusion, the significant news coverage, and the availability of relatively large
scholarships for students, speaks in favor of its potential future growth.
63

Wayne Community College, North Carolina. WCC at one time had a program called
Minority Male Success (MMS). While no program description, mention or webpage was found
on the school’s website, an internet search for ‘Wayne Community College’ ‘minority male
success’ returned as the second result, the directory link for an employee with the title of
“Minority Male Success Coach.” Further searches only turned up the same link as well as a job
opening for the same (or similar) position that was only open for 14 days in 2019 (Minority Male
Success Coach: NC Community Colleges Jobs, 2019). A search of the term ‘Wayne Community
College minority male mentoring group’ turned up a 2005 report stating that Wayne had a small
program for African American male students since 1997 (NCCCS, 2005). A PowerPoint
presentation of the program across the North Carolina Community College System (NCCCS)
indicated that the program existed at approximately 39–45 campuses of the NCCCS
7
in academic
year 2010–11 with what seemed to be a combined budget of $1.3 million (Minority Male
Mentoring Program, n.d.). The budget works out to approximately $32,500 per site, less than the
amount to fund a part time staff member as well as supplies, resources and activities for program
participants. The document also noted that from 2005–2008 the collection of programs (though it
is unclear how many there were during these years) served a total of 628 students. It is also
unclear whether this was an unduplicated student count. These dollar amounts and the fact that
the program was NCCCS-wide reveal that at the height of its operation the program was
centrally funded and organized (likely making it the largest such example found in this study);
yet, even at these heights, the level of funding allocated to each site was insufficient to make a
large-scale impact. This is evinced by the potentially duplicate-counted students-served number

7
It is difficult to determine exactly how many programs existed. As with many slide decks, the context of
the presenter’s speech is missing. For example, in various slides various numbers and lists are presented that don’t
all conform. Likely the missing context of the presenter would explain those differences.
64

of 628 system-wide.
8
Even if this is a non-duplicated number, it likely represents less than one
tenth of a percent of the male student population of the NCCCS at the time.
Later documents about the NCCCS MMS discuss a program redesign, which seems to
have culminated in its current quasi-extant state. A document of the State Board of Community
Colleges titled “Attachment FC 9, Allocation for Minority Male Success Initiative Grants FY
2016–17 (formerly referred to as Minority Male Mentoring Program (3MP))” stated the
following, “Beginning with the 2016–17 academic year, the NCCCS is redesigning the Minority
Male Mentoring Program (3MP) to more closely align with the student success initiatives
currently taking place throughout our system” (State Board of Community Colleges, 2016, p. 1).
According to the two objectives described, the intention was to both increase retention and to
support greater social and academic integration (Tinto, 1975; 2006) and student involvement
(Astin, 1999). Though, as the literature review of this study suggests, there is very little in the
way of guidance for sites on how to achieve these aims (Kitchen et al., 2021b). In fact, under
Objective 1 (State Board of Community Colleges, 2016), “Increase the progression of first-year
minority male students” (p. 1) one of the two sub-bullets explicitly states that it is leaving out
guidance on how to achieve the desired aims:
Set a goal for how [emphasis added] your institution will seek to increase the percentage
of minority male students meeting the minimum satisfactory academic progress standards
of a cumulative GPA of 2.0 and 67% completion rate by the end of their first academic
year. (State Board of Community Colleges, 2016, p. 1)

8
This number must be considered in relation to total enrollment. The 2005 through 2008 enrollment
numbers for the collective NCCCS were not available, but a report found on the NCCCS website reveals that the
2010 system-wide enrollment was 844,692, https://www.nccommunitycolleges.edu/analytics/statistical-reports.
65

The short document ends with a breakdown of the allocations, which are minimal. In total, 47
campuses received $17,234 each. A cursory review of the North Carolina Community Colleges
Jobs Board revealed that this amount is less than half the salary of what an equivalent position to
support such a program would be paid (NC Community Colleges Jobs, 2022). The same job
board featured a defunct posting for this specific position. A salary was not provided, but it was
part time, and required only an Associate’s degree, further indicating that the pay would most
likely be low. This provides further evidence to the above assertion that while there was central
planning and funding, that funding was insufficient to produce large-scale impact via
programming.
College of the Mainland, Texas. College of the Mainland’s (COM) Minority Men for
Excellence (MM4E) “is a program designed to improve the recruitment and retention of
Minorities at the College of the Mainland” (Minority Men for Excellence, n.d., para. 1).
Participants received academic support and character and leadership development through
programs and workshops. Men in the program also participated in community engagement
opportunities and received mentoring by faculty, staff and peers. Improving retention was a
primary focus of this program. Furthermore, this was a sharp contrast compared to other deficits-
based programs described later. The webpage lists “Membership Benefits” and “Services”
separately, though it is not clear what the distinction is:
Membership Benefits
• individualized services and assistance, including guidance in creating a personalized
success action plan
• one-on-one mentoring from one of our Student Leaders, an MM4E-COM brother that
has demonstrated holistic success and grit
66

• access to apply for the scholarships: COM Foundation TG Wooten, etc.
• be a part of an inclusive environment on campus that provides community and
belonging to all
• a staff advocate for your MM4E-COM student experience
• leadership opportunities to represent the college at engagements and increased
opportunities to become a Student Leader around campus
• alerts about exciting and new upcoming programs and services
• be a part of our peer network that offers informal mentoring and opportunities for
networking
Services:
• community service opportunities
• grants and scholarship
• individualized advising
• personal development workshops
• student leader mentoring (Minority Men for Excellence, n.d., Membership Benefits
section)
The first list reveals some connections to this study’s CF. “Guidance in creating a
personalized success action plan” is aligned with the SBP tactic of collaborative problem
solving. That is, “personalized” “guidance” is qualitatively different from providing solutions.
The SBP tactic that goes hand in hand with collaborative problem solving is “see the target, hit
the target,” and we see here that the logical progression of MM4E’s work also conceptualizes
these two underlying concepts as practically enmeshed. The “guidance” is followed immediately
with “creating a personalized success action plan.” This is the first step of the SBP tactic of “see
67

the target, hit the target.” And while this is only the first step, the next bullet reveals the
underlying intention of the second step, in that it provides for mentorship from a student leader
with demonstrated “grit.” No definition or citation for “grit” was provided, but presuming it was
used here similarly to Duckworth’s definition, who coined the phrase,
9
we can understand it as
closing the “hit the target” loop where a student develops goals and then is supported in
accountability toward those goals.
A more fundamental alignment with strengths-based perspective can be seen in MM4E’s
mission statement. Such alignment is essential to the work of supporting students in general, as
well as males in particular precisely because the strengths-based perspective precedes the seeing
and valuing of students. The full mission statement read, “Develops leaders, promotes
brotherhood and academic excellence, while providing service and advocacy for our
communities” (Minority Men for Excellence, n.d., Mission section). The promotion of
“brotherhood” as a positive value, necessarily includes a positive conceptualization of the
masculine nature of such relationships and thereby a positive conceptualization of masculinity.
Under a different conceptualization, other words such as “community” or “relationships” could
have replaced the word “brotherhood.” Instead, the specific choice of that word is an important
insight into how the program views males and maleness. This is at the core of strengths-based
perspective when serving males. Alternatively, they could have taken a deficits-based approach
antithetical to the recommendations of this study’s CF. An example of such an approach was
provided by the Associated Students of the University of Oregon’s Men’s Center (an institution
that was not randomly sampled for this study but whose men’s center came up several times

9
Duckworth provides the following definition on her website, www.angeladuckworth.com, “Grit is
passion and perseverance for long-term goals…a goal you care about so much that it organizes and gives meaning to
almost everything you do. And grit is holding steadfast to that goal. Even when you fall down. Even when you
screw up. Even when progress toward that goal is halting or slow.”
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during the Phase 3 internet search). Their mission includes “reconstructing masculinity.” I will
provide further discussion of this and other non-sampled programs in a later section, titled
Programs Found Outside the Sample. Furthermore, MM4E’s concise but dense mission
statement also specifically calls out “service,” which again is a requisite component of
traditionally conceptualized masculinity. The most obvious example of this, of course, is military
service, with the U.S. military being currently 83% male (Office of the Deputy Assistant
Secretary of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy, 2020).
Housed in COM’s Student Life division, “The MM4E program provides opportunities for
participants to connect with campus resources, students, faculty, staff, administrators, and
College of the Mainland by providing a holistic approach that cultivates a sense of belonging”
(Minority Men for Excellence, n.d., Learning Outcomes section). This statement connects with
Tinto’s (1975) concepts of social and academic integration through interaction with faculty and
my modification of the same to include interaction with other student-facing professionals, as
well as Astin’s (1999) theory of student involvement.
MM4E’s 2019–20 group photo featured 30–40 student members. This would represent
approximately 2.4% of the total male population of the school. And while all indications are that
MM4E is doing important, meaningful work, their current level of activity at the time of this
study was small-scale in relation to the need.
Having found six extant differentiated programs for men of color at five institutions
within the sample, the level of service to students can be characterized in a few different ways.
The 71,000 students at these five institutions represent a quarter of the 281,000 students in the
sample.
10
However, the estimated membership of these six programs is 106, which represents

10
One quarter of the sample’s students are found at just one ninth of the sample’s institutions (5 out of 46
schools) because these five schools include the second largest school by population (UC, Davis), fifth largest
69

only 0.15% of the students at these institutions. To consider these 106 students against the entire
male student population of the sample, would mean that 0.09% of the male students in these
institutions are participating in differentiated supports for male students of color. The reader will
notice, that these programs have been conflated as if they were all targeting ‘men of color,’ when
in fact two of them are specifically for Black men, and one of those two is specifically for Black
men seeking to become educators. That is to say, even 0.09% is perhaps an exaggeration. While
the numbers can be sliced in various ways, the conclusion is that there are relatively few
differentiated supports aimed at men of color, and for those programs that exist, their reach is
quite limited.
All in all, this study identified only one program aimed at all male students, which was a
men’s ministry at Gardner-Webb University. However, the focus of this ministry was not
retention specifically. Additionally, this study identified programs aimed at supporting the
retention of male students of color (in some cases these were for Black students specifically,
while in other cases students of color more broadly). Of these, six were confirmed extant, one
was confirmed defunct and another is unconfirmed. In all cases, the programs were small in
scale. These results are summarized in Table 16.
Strategic Planning Documents
In addition to examining what was already being done to support male student retention,
this study also asked what IHEs plan to do. As such, this study reviewed 57 strategic planning
documents for the 46 sampled institutions. Some institutions had more than one document (for
example, a strategic planning document and an equity plan), while other institutions presented no

(Towson), seventh largest (Normandale) and 10th largest (Pace). College of the Mainland, Texas is in a veritable tie
for 15th place with four other IHEs. This perhaps points to an interesting area for further inquiry: what impact does
school size have on whether or not a school is able to maintain a holistic approach toward students, is more likely to
engage in differentiated supports, or has some other approach.
70

publicly available planning documents. Of the 57 reviewed documents, only two mentioned male
students in the context of planning for their improved outcomes. Interestingly, both institutions
were community colleges—Labette Community College (LCC) of Parsons, Kansas and Cerro
Coso Community College (CCCC) of Ridgecrest, California. Within LCC’s 221 page strategic
planning tome, it was their Sonography Department that made the following statement,
We have expanded our recruiting efforts to meet the 5P1 Perkin’s
11
nontraditional
participation that will include more males, African American, and other minorities. By
targeting these groups, we will diversify and increase self-value while increasing dignity
and respect of each student. (Labette Community College, 2021, p. 134)
This appeared within the Sonography Department’s response to LCC’s overarching “Core Value
2B - Respond to the diverse learning needs of our community.” It seems that of all the
departments at LCC (and to be fair, almost the entirety of the sample in this study) only the LCC
Sonography Department treated males as a minority group on campus as demonstrated by the
words “and other minorities.” Of course, such an understanding is incontrovertibly true in higher
education, but generally not acknowledged. Furthermore, concrete plans are laid out for how to
better recruit them.
Cerro Coso Community College’s planning goes much further. Though not mentioned in
the institution’s strategic plan, males were discussed several times in the Cerro Coso Community
College Student Equity Plan, 2019–2022 Executive Summary. On page seven, the document
outlined four action areas: access, course completion, basic skills completion, degree and
certificate completion, and transfer. Under access, and degree and certificate completion, the

11
Perkin’s seems to refer to the federal Carl Perkins grant. 5P1 presumably refers to a target or intention
outlined in the grant proposal.
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following target groups were identified: “African American,” “American Indian,” and “males.”
This was followed by an extensive description of planned activities for 2015–2018:
Improve access for the following target populations identified in the college research as
experiencing a disproportionate impact: Males, African American, American Indian. The
college has also been working diligently on addressing the access gap with Male students.
One promising area has been to increase our visibility among current and former service
members. An Educational Advisor was hired to create outreach events, activities and
resources specifically for the veteran population. (Cero Cosso Community College, 2019,
p. 7)
The three primary areas by which male access increases were achieved are: a focus on veterans,
the launch of a new cyber security degree and certificate, and inmate education programs at two
all-male correctional facilities, where “enrollment has grown from 20 students in fall 2015 to 631
students in spring 2018. It continued to see significant growth in 2018–19” (Cerro Coso
Community College Student Equity Plan, 2019–2022 Executive Summary, 2022, p. 8). The
document closed with progress and numbers for these targets citing a growth in the number of
male students from 873 in 2016–17 to 1,626 in 2017–18. It was difficult to use IPEDS to
determine what percentage of this growth was due to inmate enrollment as significant variance
was found between the IPEDS numbers and those in the Equity Plan. Using just the Equity Plan
numbers, the most plausible presumption is that the growth in inmate enrollment from 20 in 2015
to 631 in 2018 occurred along a ramped trend. Thus, it can be presumed that a majority of the
male access gains (an increase of 753 from academic year 2016–17 to academic year 2017–18)
came from the enrollment of a greater number of inmates, all of whom were male. This study
did not consider the education of inmates in its design. The males discussed in this study were
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presumed to be free individuals. While CCCC’s conceptualization of males within their planning
documents likely makes it one of the leading institutions in the nation on this front, it is also
striking that their actual gains were likely primarily made by addressing prisoners. In other
words, even a leader has had relatively little success enrolling and retaining free, traditional and
nontraditional male students, but found success among a captive audience.
The document went on to report degree and certificate completion rates for African
Americans, American Indians and males. For males it reported an increase from 122 in academic
year 2016–17 to 153 in academic year 2017–18. Again, it is difficult to ascertain what percentage
of these were accounted for by the inmate students. However, considering the literal captive
nature of that audience, it is plausible, though unconfirmed, that they represent a sizable portion
of the increase.
These two small institutions (and in fact, only the Sonography Department at LCC) allow
the data to guide their understanding of their student body. They see male under-enrollment in
their numbers and take it seriously. Ultimately, though, CCCC and LCC enrolled a combined
total of 6,623 students in fall of 2020, 2,779 of whom were male. Their 6,623 students represent
2.35% of the students in the entire sample (281,554 undergraduate students) and their 2,779 male
students represent 1% of the male students in the entire sample. If we give LCC credit as an
entire institution (not just its Sonography Department) we can draw the very conservative
conclusion from this representative sample that institutions serving 2.35% of the nation’s
undergraduate students are planning for how to better support male retention.
Frequency of Types of Male-Focused Programs
During Phase 3 the results were coded into the categories based on the nature of the
results. This exhaustive internet search of 46 representative IHEs reviewing over 7,600 links
73

returned very few male-focused support programs in higher education all of which have been
discussed in this document. The ultimate finding of Phase 3 is that IHEs are doing next to
nothing to support male student retention, specifically. However, some interesting findings do
shed light on what male students seeking support at institutions might find. For example,
searching ‘XYZ University’ + “men’s center” primarily returned drug rehabilitation facilities or
homeless shelters in the same city as a given IHE. Indeed, after correcting for noise,
12
58.2% of
all returned links for this search term were for drug rehabilitation, homeless shelters or prison
reentry services. Otherwise stated, using these search terms is an effective way to find a drug
rehabilitation facility, not services and programs to support male college students. Because
searching the term “men’s center” produced such consistently negative
13
results, these search
results were both quantified separately as well as included with all other search terms. When
including all search terms for men and averaging all three sectors, only 14.8% of results were
positive links for men. Another 23.8% were categorized as indifferent,
14
and 33.9% were links to
irrelevant pages on the school’s actual website. The 14.8% of positive results is a very
conservative number as it included male differentiated resources, male healthcare resources,
relevant external links and any positive resources from the school in general. Otherwise, actual

12
The majority of returned links for each search term were coded into a category deemed to be irrelevant.
These include the following categories: external data websites which track and present demographic and other data
on IHE’s primarily aimed at prospective students and families; rankings sites such as US News and World Report;
entirely irrelevant links, related neither to higher education nor men or women; and Wikipedia. Furthermore,
athletics related links formed a large percentage of the results in each sector (Sector 1: 31% for men, 29.8% for
women; Sector 2: 33.9% for men, 44.9% for women; Sector 4: 20.8% for men, 21% for women). Since within sector
percentages between men and women were very similar, and athletics was not one of the sought supports in this
study, these were also included in the irrelevant category. In the denoising process, these categories were all
eliminated and percentages were recalculated using the remainder of links as a whole. As an additional note, the
elimination of athletics should not be taken as a judgment on their value in higher education, where the author
contends they play an important role. They were simply not the subject of this study.
13
The terms ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ are being used here in the traditional sense. For example, if searching
‘XYZ university’ + ‘men’ returned a drug rehabilitation clinic, this would be counted as negative. If it returned a
link for a men’s residence hall (as in the case of Hillsdale college) it would be counted as positive.
14
These were all external links. If they had been links on the school’s website, they would have been
counted in the next category discussed.
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male differentiated resources, which were the focus of this study, were only 2.3%
15
of results in
Sector 1, 0.72% of results in Sector 2, and 2.62%
16
of results in Sector 4.
17

Male Differentiated Supports in Relation to Differentiated Supports Serving Other
Subpopulations
As discussed above, very few differentiated supports aimed specifically at male students
were found. While this study’s purpose was not to seek or analyze the differentiated supports
these institutions offered other subpopulations, the encountered ones were nonetheless noted and
counted to examine contrasting ways that IHEs support different students. This resulted in some
interesting observations.
• Community Colleges were more likely to have differentiated supports for veterans
(13 supports at 10 schools, representing 71% of the CC sample), parenting students
(12 at nine, 64% of the CC sample), low income students (26 at 12, 86% of the CC
sample) and disabled students (11 at seven, 50% of the CC sample). Many of these
supports seemed to be federally funded programs.
• Public universities were most likely to have differentiated supports for LGBT
students (23 at nine, representing 64% of the public university sample), with private

15
This Sector 1 number is overblown because all of the 16 links here led to only three programs—a DBP
student run program at University at Buffalo, (two links); Man 2 Man at Towson University, (nine links); and a
$5,000 pledge by Clayton State University to increase the number of Black male nurses, (five links).
16
This Sector 4 number is overblown because 50 of the 67 found links in this category were to the same
program, SIRtify, at Normandale Community College in Minnesota. The remaining 17 links lead to a men’s
residence hall at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, (3 links); a men’s success coach at Wayne Community
College in North Carolina, (4 links); and the Minority Male Success Program at College of the Mainland, Texas, (10
links).
17
These sector numbers are how the sectors were coded in IPEDS. Sector 3 is missing from this study
because it consists of “Private for-profit, 4-year or above” and does not serve a large percentage of undergraduate
students.

75

schools second (10 at four, representing 25% of the private university sample) and
community colleges had none visible on their websites.
• Both public sectors had differentiated supports for first generation students at a rate of
43%. Similar supports existed at 25% of the private schools.
• Public universities were most likely to have differentiated supports for Black students
(nine supports at five public universities, or 36%), Native American students (11 at
six universities, or 43%), students of Color more broadly (20 at seven universities or
50%) and female students (16 at seven or 50%). Private universities were second in
each of these categories: for Black students (four at four, or 25%), Native American
students (three at three, or 19%), Students of Color more broadly (four at four, or
25%), and female students (seven at five, or 31%). Community Colleges were least
likely to have differentiated supports for these groups.
• Some institutions had no or almost no differentiated supports. These were most likely
to be found among private schools and to a lesser degree, community colleges. This
study’s design did not allow for an exploration of what the absence of programs
represents. One explanation could be that these IHEs were not focused on supporting
students in subpopulations that need greater support. However, an equally valid
explanation could be that these IHEs were implementing the recommended holistic
approach, (Braxton & McClendon, 2001; Braxton & Mundy, 2001; Hossler et al.,
2009; Tinto 2001), and thus did not separate out services. This bears further study.
• Looking at the three sectors in aggregate, various subpopulations of students received
282 supports at the 46 sampled institutions. The only differentiated support found for
male students in the sample was the Men’s Ministry at Gardner-Webb
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University. Thus, it can be concluded that while providing differentiated supports is a
common practice in higher education, the same approach is not applied to male
students.
Programs Found Outside the Sample
It became evident that saturation had been reached within this study when a handful of
male-focused supports at a handful of institutions continually arose during the Phase 3 internet
search. It is important to note that none of these institutions were in the random sample of IHEs
for this study. Thus, what is discussed in this section does not contribute to the generalizable
findings of this study. The below resources are discussed for the following reasons: first, to
demonstrate the degree to which saturation was reached during this study; second, due to the
dearth of sought programs; third, to analyze these relatively few examples in relation to this
study’s CF; fourth, to question whether my previous assertion that “less than 0.74% of the
nation’s undergraduate students attend a university or college that provides differentiated
supports to its male students for increased retention” may, in fact, be an overestimation. Links to
all of the following resources were found at least five times each during Phase 3:
• Associated Students of the University of Oregon’s Men’s Center
• Center for Male Success at Housatonic Community College
• City University of New York Male Initiative
• Lakeland Community College Men’s Center
• Lone Star College, Kingwood Campus, Men’s Center
• University of Massachusetts Men and Masculinities Center
Interestingly these resources came up over and over again regardless of what sector was
being studied. Furthermore, only one of the six institutions could be considered to have national
77

name recognition—University of Oregon. The other two that also fall somewhat into this
category are City University of New York and University of Massachusetts. They are not
squarely in this category because the programs were found at lesser known campuses in each of
those systems, York College in Queens and Amherst respectively. This is important because it
might otherwise be assumed that when searching for IHEs, big-name institutions are more likely
to come up in the results. That did not hold true for search results relevant to this study. The
findings described in detail below are also summarized in Table 16.
Associated Students of the University of Oregon’s Men’s Center. The ASUO MC was
an important example for analysis. The strict criteria of excluding student organizations or clubs
was not adhered to in the case of the ASUO MC because: this resource came up repeatedly
during the Phase 3 internet search as one of the few examples in the nation of a Men’s Center at
an IHE; it was the only such repeated find at a nationally recognized institution; and because the
University of Oregon was not a part of this study’s sample in any case, thus not impacting the
integrity of the sampling method and the generalizable findings. Had it been part of the sample, it
would not have been included because it seems to be a student organization. As such, the
following analysis is useful but excluded from the actual findings of this study. The importance
of the ASUO MC is that it provides an example of antagonism towards men and maleness.
ASUO MC’s 56-word mission statement is more of a statement on what is wrong with
society and why males are at the center of it, than it is an expression of intent to support men:
The Men’s Center strives to create spaces and events where people of all genders and
identities can work collectively towards reconstructing masculinity in a social justice-
oriented manner. We aim to raise awareness about the intersections of men’s health issues
and social justice issues, and ways that men can play a more active role in ending
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oppression (Associated Students of the University of Oregon Men’s Center. n.d., Mission
section)
Their tagline was “Reworking Masculinity,” which very closely reflects the most obvious
expression of a deficits-based perspective found in the mission statement—the intention to “work
collectively towards reconstructing masculinity.” Reconstruction is intended for things that are
either no longer functioning properly or were constructed poorly in the first place. That is, the
maleness of the students is perceived as flawed and must be reconstructed. This approach can be
thought of as the anti-strengths-based perspective or a deficits-based perspective. The “aim to
raise awareness” of “ways that men can play a more active role in ending oppression” reflects the
intent of the organization. The Center’s mission never expresses any intent to support individual
male students, or even males as a group. Rather men are conceptualized at best as not caring
enough about oppression as indicated by the word “more” in “ways that men can play a more
active role in ending oppression.” And conceptualized at worst as being the cause of oppression
themselves, in the need to reconstruct “masculinity in a social justice-oriented manner.” Or
otherwise stated, according to ASUO MC, masculinity, as it stands, is a cause (perhaps the cause)
of social injustice. By contrast, we see more positive conceptualization of maleness in the
College of the Mainland’s Minority Men for Excellence’s 15-word mission statement as
discussed above.
The sparse ASUO MC website featured five sections: the home page, about us, contact
us, events and meetings, and resources. Interestingly the resource page did not have any
resources to support male academic success or retention. The listed resources include: three
resources for those dealing with domestic violence, three mental health and drug addiction
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resources, and two resources for victims of sexual violence. Several of the resources seem to be
aimed specifically at women. None of the resources were aimed specifically at men.
Ultimately, the impact of this center was limited by the fact that it seemed to be defunct at
the time of this study. The latest update to the website is from March of 2020 and the Facebook
page no longer existed.
Center for Male Success at Housatonic Community College. Very little was found
about what is alternatively referred to as the Center for Male Success at Housatonic Community
College and the Housatonic Community College Men’s Center (HCCMC), other than what
seems to be a combination history and mission statement:
The Men’s Center, a pilot project reestablished in Spring 2019 by the Allison Foundation
Inc that intends to increase, encourage, and support the inclusion and educational success
for males of color. [sic] Our aim is to create an ongoing learning community and leverage
all available resources that support students’ navigation through the complex currents of
college life. The center is comprised of dedicated individuals who advocate for an
improved educational experience and quality of life for the men of Housatonic
Community college. All Male Success projects are in alignment with the Housatonic
Mission, and Values (Housatonic Community College’s Men’s Center, n.d., para. 1)
Again, the available information was sparse. All we have to go from is the above statement and
the fact that the listed program coordinator works in the office of the dean of students. Within the
above statement, however, there is a focus on improving educational success for male students of
color, (e.g., “intends to increase, encourage, and support the inclusion and educational success
for males of color.”) By what is omitted, we may hope (though, not know) that the antagonism
evident in the Associated Students of the University of Oregon’s Men’s Center is absent from the
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practice of the HCCMC. Nowhere does the above statement call for a reformation or
reconceptualization of men and masculinity, but rather calls for “improved educational
experience and quality of life for the men.”
City University of New York, The York College Male Initiative Program and Men’s
Center. The York College Male Initiative Program and Men’s Center (MIP) provided one of the
most explicit program designs with clearly stated goals and activities. Their concise mission
statement reads, “The York College Male Initiative Program provides a system of support
through various resources that contribute to the improvement of enrollment and graduation rates
of underrepresented populations, particularly male students” (Male Initiative Program, n.d.,
Mission section). In this, MIP joined Labette Community College and Cerro Coso Community
College in recognizing males as underrepresented in higher education. Their website described
activities in four areas: mentoring through a program called Each One, Reach One; an open
forum for dialogue called Barbershop; participation in the Pi Eta Kappa academic fraternity and
honors society; an annual men’s conference; and the Fatherhood Initiative, which “provides
resources and guidance towards the academic needs of learners who are fathers” (Male Initiative
Program, n.d., Fatherhood Initiative section) MIP seemed to matter-of-factly address themselves
to the academic needs of male students, though the site was careful to note that their services are
open to all students regardless of gender.
Lakeland Community College Men’s Resource Center. LCCMRC website described
several programs, services and resources that the center provides for male students of Lakeland
Community College in Kirtland, Ohio. These included the following: Supporting male students
to take advantage of general programs and resources provided at the college such as First Rung
or Quick Start. Both were programs open to the general student population, but the LCCMRC
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helps male students access them. First Rung helped people prepare for the GED and “the move
to college at the same time” while Quick Start, offered “an intensive 8-week college prep
program” for high school graduates or GED holders. Additionally, LCCMRC had two of its own
programs geared specifically toward men. Pathfinders was “geared to the needs of African-
American men who are interested in starting a college education;” and Gateway was “geared to
the needs of male students 25 or older.” The center offered a scholarship for students and was a
self-styled, one-stop-shop for male students. The website and its mission presented an implicit
and explicit strengths-based perspective toward male students. It began with the tagline: “We
Help Men Prepare, Enroll and Succeed at Lakeland” (Lakeland Community College Men’s
Resource Center, n.d., main page). The mission statement read as follows:
The Men’s Resource Center at Lakeland, created in 1996, was one of the first resources at
a college or university dedicated to serving male students. Our primary purpose is to help
men plan for and achieve their educational and career goals. (Lakeland Community
College Men’s Resource Center, n.d., para. 1)
This first paragraph demonstrates that retention was the primary goal of the center, but of
course it was appropriately framed in much more student-centered language, of helping students
“achieve their educational and career goals.” In the next paragraph the website went on to
demonstrate aspects of its SBP practice. The italicized section in the below passage speaks
directly to collaborative problem solving:
If you are thinking about attending Lakeland, come talk to us. We can help you determine
if your career goals can be achieved through Lakeland coursework. If you decide to
enroll, we can guide you [emphasis added], through the process, including financial
aid. (Lakeland Community College Men’s Resource Center, n.d., para. 2)
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With this succinct paragraph LCCMRC kept the locus of control internal to the student. It did not
provide solutions, it offered support allowing the student to arrive at his own solutions. In a
number of places, the website explicitly connected educational goals to career outcomes,
bringing it in line with this study’s SBP tactic of “see the target, hit the target.” A prime example
of this was found on the home page, “the Men’s Resource Center is here to help you…connect
your career goals to educational possibilities.” The testimony of a student participant in one of
LCCMRC’s programs, confirms this understanding of their approach.
LCCMRC Pathfinders alumnus, Quantez, testified to his experience of Pathfinders in a
video hosted on their site (Lakeland Community College Men’s Resource Center, n.d.,
Pathfinders section). His short monologue captures the confluence of Tinto (1975), Astin (1999)
and SBP discussed in this study’s conceptual framework almost perfectly.
It made me feel like I belong, so it makes me want to come back here. It makes me want
to do better. It makes me want to inspire others. They seemed like they were interested.
Sometimes you’re hesitant of new people. Maybe they just want me here just so they can
just get students enrolled here. But when they actually show that they’re invested in you,
then you put time in with them and it pays off. Not just that but uh, if we have anything—
like most of us—most of the guys in Pathfinders, didn’t know what they want to do for
majors. Jim Shelley took it upon himself, ‘how about we get a career fair going.’
(Lakeland Community College Men’s Resource Center, n.d., Pathfinders section)
This student saying, he “belong[ed]” and wanted to “come back..to do better” speaks directly to
the intersection of this study’s conceptual framework’s SBP and Tinto’s (1975) social integration
and their relevant impacts on his academic integration. Furthermore, it explicitly demonstrates
the two-way nature of Astin’s (1999) student involvement. The student felt the sense of
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belonging through the efforts of the practitioner, it increased his social integration, which made
him “want to do better,” increasing his academic integration. In this student’s experience, the
relationship was built at first hesitantly. His nature was to be resistant and cautious of the “new
people” who may have ulterior motives. Once the practitioner took on the relationship
responsibility—those initial meetings, Shelley putting on career fairs, etc.—and conducted the
same from an SBP, starting with collaborative problem solving as opposed to enforced self-
disclosure or “vulnerability,” then the relationship developed and was useful in pushing the
student forward toward success. This resulted in the student saying, “It makes me want to come
back here. It makes me want to do better. It makes me want to inspire others…when they
actually show that they’re invested in you, then you put time in with them and it pays off.”
Quantez went on to explicitly discuss men’s’ hesitancy for self-disclosure, and even his
difficulty broaching the subject implicitly drives that point home:
The thing is…uh…we’re not, we try not, as men, we’re not as comfortable being
vulnerable, but when we go to Pathfinders, it’s okay. We get support and it’s alright to be
vulnerable. You got a safe haven. So, these people are…not just friends and colleagues,
but they’re family. And that makes it easier. (Lakeland Community College Men’s
Resource Center, n.d., Pathfinders section)
His halting speech and long pause at the thought of bringing up the topic of vulnerability also
reflected the difficulty of the subject for men. The center director, James Shelley’s,
understanding of this was evinced in his article, “Ten Reasons Why Men Aren’t Going to
College” (2017), and was reflected in the student’s experience of the program and speaks further
to an SBP program design for the LCCMRC; I discussed Shelley’s contribution on the subject of
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problem solving versus self-disclosure in greater detail in the conceptual framework of this
study.
Quantez’ testimony also reflected other various aspects of SBP such as “I see you,” where
the individual and his gifts were acknowledged, and “affirmation first, advice second,” where a
given student’s individual talents or gifts were acknowledged prior to giving advice, which helps
build relationship. As he stated, “The thing, there, is we’re not just trying to help us become
better students, we’re trying to help us become better men. I think that was very important.”
Although this was an alumnus, not a staff member, the use of the pronouns “we” and “us” further
exemplified his sense of belonging in the LCCMRC. Furthermore, it provides a sharp contrast to
the University of Oregon’s deficits-based perspective on males and masculinity.
Had York College and Lakeland Community College fallen into the random sample for
this study, their programs would have represented the only differentiated program aimed at all
male students for increased retention found.
Lone Star College, Kingwood Campus, Men’s Center. Unlike the other examples
provided in this section, LSCMC seemed to be more of a mixed bag. While the program showed
some signs of a strengths-based perspective on male students in its introductory statement and
mission statement, it also hosted events, which by the titles, may indicate a deficits-based
perspective on male students. The center’s services included various outreach based activities to
draw students in and provide space for conversation such as Talkin’ Tuesdays, Foosball Fridays,
Man Cave, Barbershop etc. One of the center’s stated goals was to, “Establish a comprehensive
mentoring program for all first-year male students, starting primarily with male student are [sic]
from under-represented backgrounds” (Lone Star College Men’s Center, n.d., Goals section)
However, it was unclear from the website whether this intention had been realized. Another
85

service that did seem to be in place was the “African American and Hispanic Institute for Males”
which was a four-day college experience aimed at 14–18 year-old “African American and
Hispanic” males. The website also described, “Academic Guidance & Support,” “Leadership
Development,” “Recruiting,” and “Financial Planning and Assistance.” The potentially deficits-
based aspects of the centers work were difficult to explore as they were only found in the titles or
subjects of posted events, but no further information or videos of the events were available. For
example, an events calendar posted to their Instagram account in February, 2022, listed 15 events
from February through May. These included a “Talkin’ Tuesday” about “toxic masculinity,” two
“sexual assault awareness” events, and an event called, “Breaking the Boy Code of Masculinity.”
The past events list on their website revealed at least one more event each on “toxic masculinity”
and “sexual assault awareness.” Such a focus on a view of masculinity as either inherently toxic,
or inherently more prone to toxicity than femininity, for example, is necessarily a deficits-based
perspective on male students and their masculinity. A strengths-based perspective, in contrast,
would attempt to support individuals to address negative behaviors in their lives, not by
constructing a view of them as representatives of a group (e.g., men or women) but rather as
individuals who have certain positive behaviors and certain negative behaviors for which they
must take personal responsibility. Focusing on developing the positive behaviors would be the
starting point, “Affirmation First, Advise Second,” from which a deeper relationship can be
developed to support reduction in the negative behaviors. The LSCMC’s social media seemed
active in posts but not interactions. Their 94-follower Instagram account featured 26 posts over
the last year with 109 likes and no comments. This may be indicative of limited reach.
UMass Men and Masculinities Center. During Phase 3, the most frequently returned
relevant result was an article about the University of Massachusetts, Amherst Men and
86

Masculinities Center (Lauth, 2016). UMASS MMC presented another example of a deficits-
based approach toward male students specifically and masculinity in general. The center’s
mission statement reveals that men are not in fact at the center of their work: “Our mission is to
support male student success and the development of masculinities that are healthy for
individuals and communities at UMass Amherst and beyond from a male positive, multicultural,
and pro-feminist perspective” (University of Massachusetts Men and Masculinities Center, n.d.,
Mission section). To understand the jargon-ridden mission statement, the reader must plumb the
website’s FAQ, which presents the following question and answer: “What does it mean to be
male positive?” The answer revealed that it means anything but being positive about males:
Being male-positive means being affirming of men and optimistic about men. It is to
believe that men can change and approaching them, including one’s self, simultaneously
with gentleness and accountability; as we support every man’s efforts at positive change.
A male-positive perspective resists feeling hopeless about men and rejects the idea that
men are somehow intrinsically emotionless, violent or sexist. At the same time, there is a
recognition that individual men are responsible for their oppressive behavior (that exists
within a context of a patriarchal and sexist social structure) and can choose to change it.
Being male-positive means building close relations and supportive alliances among men
in order to support mutual growth and change. Male-positivity is also about recognizing
and praising the positive aspects of masculinities. (University of Massachusetts Men and
Masculinities Center, n.d., FAQ section)
Beginning with the assertion that “It is to believe that men can change,” implies very directly
that men require change. This is different from the obvious observation that all people are in
varying states of development and should strive toward greater growth. This statement instead
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asserted that men specifically are in need of change which is unique to their maleness or
masculinity: “A male-positive perspective resists feeling hopeless about men and rejects the idea
that men are somehow intrinsically emotionless, violent or sexist.” This sentence indicates that
the understandable default perspective on men is a hopeless feeling that they are probably
“intrinsically emotionless, violent or sexist.” Additionally, the excerpt went on to say, “At the
same time, there is a recognition that individual men are responsible for their oppressive
behavior.” This behavior was not described but rather larger systems (outside of the control of
individual men) were brought into the conversation that began with an idea of personal
responsibility. That is to say, the individual is conflated with the group, in a subtle sleight-of-
hand. The statement ended with a sentence that gives the sense that it was added during a second
edit, “Male-positivity is also about recognizing and praising the positive aspects of
masculinities.” This sentence’s position as well as the presence of the modifier “also” reveals the
author’s understanding of masculinity as mostly, if not entirely, negative and that any positive
aspects only arise from reformation or reconstruction into “masculinities.”
Further study of the FAQ gives greater understanding to the mission statement:
What is a ‘pro-feminist’ perspective?
Being pro-feminist, at the core, means being informed by feminist analyses of society. It
means being committed to challenging women’s oppression, sexism and binary gender
injustice. Being pro-feminist means being aware of women’s experiences and to bring
them to the center of analysis, not to displace men, but to broaden the perspective. For us,
it means trying to develop non-oppressive forms of masculinity and non-sexist relations
with women. It is essential to name it as trying, as we know that our culture is steeped in
patriarchy and sexism, and thus it is an ongoing commitment to examine our interactions,
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thought processes, and ourselves as part of the larger culture. (University of
Massachusetts Men and Masculinities Center, 2021, FAQ section)
This statement can be sharply contrasted with the rest of the UMass MMC’s website,
which never suggests “being aware of [men’s] experiences” or to “bring [men] to the center of
analysis.” It reveals that the center’s purpose is to “develop non-oppressive forms of masculinity
and non-sexist relations with women,” which implies that masculinity in its natural form is
necessarily oppressive and necessarily develops sexist relations with women. That is to say, if the
development of “non-oppressive forms of masculinity,” are necessary, then the implication is that
the extant form of masculinity is necessarily oppressive. And by association, the extant forms of
relationships produced by masculinity are necessarily sexist.
A contrary example to the UMass MMC’s DBP is found at the University at Buffalo’s
“Safe Zone Training,” one of several dozen resources listed under the UB strategic initiative for
“LGBTQ+ Inclusion,” which were encountered during Phase 1 when reviewing all differentiated
resources for various subpopulations of students. An excerpt of this training’s description
indicates its closer alignment with this study’s conceptual framework:
A Safe Zone is an intentional space, climate and/or person that is affirming of all
students, staff and faculty regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or gender
expression. Creating inclusive and supportive spaces for LGBTQ+ students, staff and
faculty decreases stigma and increases social interactions, participation in campus
activities and feelings of safety. (University at Buffalo, 2021, LGBTQ+ Events section)
The language used here is closely aligned with strengths-based perspective. For example,
“affirming,” “inclusive,” “supportive.” The intent to increase “social interactions, participation in
campus activities and feelings of safety” aligns almost exactly with Tinto’s (1975) model of
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improved social interaction resulting in improved social integration as well as Astin’s student
involvement (1999).
On the other hand, the UMass MMC boasts three leadership paths for students: Violence
Prevention, White Ribbon campaign (prevention of men’s violence against women), and Men’s
Education Network, whose purpose statement, though wordy, was difficult to distill into actual
practice other than reconstructing or reforming masculinity. Two of the three “leadership” paths
primarily focus on men’s potential value in preventing violence. That is, they are conceived
primarily in relation to a negative behavior and then approached in a manner aimed at preventing
said behavior through direct education.
The rest of the website was very much similar to what has already been described and
presented a rather dim view of men and masculinity. As with many of the other similarly DBP
resources discussed in this study, this one also seemed to be both defunct and of limited reach. Its
98-follower Twitter account showed hundreds of posts with almost zero interactions by followers
or retweets. The Center’s last tweet was in 2017. A similar situation pertained with their
Facebook account.
Comparing UMass MCC against CUNY’s MIP brings up an interesting contrast that
seems to hold across the programs analyzed in this study. SBP programs were more likely to
employ direct, concise, goal-oriented, jargon-free language. DBP programs were more likely to
have overly-verbose, opaque and jargon-heavy language. This bears further study and review of
existing literature on average male communication styles may result in recommending direct,
concise, goal-oriented and jargon-free language; any cursory analysis of consumer products
aimed primarily at male customers, would lead to a similar conclusion. Though this finding
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aligns with this study’s CF’s recommendation of marketing and outreach, the overlap of direct
language with SBP and opaque language with DBP was an unanticipated finding.
Conducting a cross-sector analysis was not one of the purposes of this study. However,
one interesting observation was noted that bears further study. Community colleges seemed to be
doing more for male students. Eight of the 18 identified programs were at community colleges
and four of the five SBP identified programs were at community colleges. This could be
attributable to community colleges’ more practical nature, but determining the cause was beyond
this study’s scope. This bears further research.
Observations of Marketing and Outreach
Though not a planned aspect of this study, nor an anticipated finding, an interesting
observation was made during the course of Phase 1—direct review of IHE websites. Three of the
46 reviewed institutional websites appealed more directly to a masculine sensibility. For
example, aesthetic similarities they shared with other male-focused consumer products or
services were noted. For an in depth exploration of the literature on male and female
consumption patterns and effective marketing approaches see The Consuming Instinct by Saad
(2013). As a detailed analysis of website marketing approaches was not part of this study, I will
only provide the institution names, some elements that stood out and a surface-level analysis of
their enrollment against the total sample enrollment.
Hallmark University
Perhaps the best example of direct, goal-oriented language was Hallmark University. The
prominent masthead of the homepage featured Hallmark’s tagline, “Get the degree that gets the
job” (Hallmark University, n.d., main webpage). The tagline was explained in the accompanying
subtext: “Hallmark University offers the degrees and high-tech certifications that businesses are
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looking for when hiring, including Cybersecurity, Business, Nursing, Aviation Maintenance, and
Information Technology.” All of this floated over a continuous video loop, not of students
engaged in stereotypical collegiate activities, but of professionals working in each of the stated
fields (Hallmark University, n.d., main webpage).
Hallmark also promoted quantifiably shorter career paths, touting 10-month associate’s
degrees, 29-month bachelor’s degrees and 10-month, online master’s degrees. The tagline, video,
and degree timelines all fall squarely within the tactic of “see the target, hit the target.”
Additionally, Hallmark’s website aesthetics (dark colors, sharp edges, square-edged sans serif
fonts, concise text etc.) were similar to those of consumer products aimed at males.
Hillsdale College
Hillsdale’s approach is less obvious than either Hallmark (above) or State Tech (below),
but nonetheless appealed very directly to a masculine sensibility. The university made appeals
both to a historic tradition, and a noble or heroic aspirational future—both of which are core to
the emergence of masculinity in boys and men (Gurian, 2010; Lewis, 2007; Peterson, 2018;
Sommers, 2013; Wilson, 2019). This vision was tied directly to an ambition to literally and
figuratively build the future, a core masculine virtue (Lewis, 2007; Peterson, 2018). All of this
was accomplished in a video with both a proud harkening back to the institution’s abolitionist
founding and a call to action and future leadership by public figures such as former American
presidents and vice presidents and a current Supreme Court justice. The college’s motto was,
“strength rejoices in the challenge,” which again appeals very directly to a masculine sensibility
(Gurian, 2010; Lewis, 2007; Peterson, 2018; Wilson, 2019). Hillsdale’s website aesthetic also
appealed more to a masculine aesthetic, though perhaps in less obvious ways than either
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Hallmark University or State Tech (below). Like Hallmark, Hillsdale employed dark colors—in
fact almost the exact same shade of navy blue—set against sharply contrasting backgrounds.
State Technical College of Missouri
State Technical College of Missouri (State Tech) employed a similar approach to
Hallmark University. Their tag line, “State Tech is the Employers’ Choice” floated over a video
loop of students engaged in work or work-related education activities (e.g., practicing nursing on
dummies, providing physical therapy, operating excavators, fixing engines etc.) A major portion
of their website touted their industry partners, and a 99% job placement rate. Again, this is all
very aligned with “see the target, hit the target.” Like Hallmark University, State Tech employed
dark colors, sharp edges, sharp-edged sans serif fonts and concise, action-oriented language.
Beyond their tag line, an example of concise action-oriented language is the section heading,
“Our Curriculum Works: so do our graduates” (State Technical College of Missouri, n.d., main
webpage).
Lewis-Clark State College
In general, Lewis-Clark State College’s website was not very different from that of the
majority of colleges in this study. However, it did present one innovative and interesting
approach that may hold promise for male students and bears further study—the Lewis-Clark
Skills webpage (Lewis-Clark State College, n.d., Skills section). Skills almost mirrored the
structure of a role playing video game, where it made concrete how specific life-applicable skills
are attained through concrete actions. For example, the skill of “Teamwork & Leadership” was
broken down into four component skills: “Relationship & Group Development,” “Motivate &
Inspire,” “Achieving Common Goals,” and “Adapt Leadership Style.” Each of these four
components was then broken down into four levels of mastery, and each level described concrete
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actions that a student can take to attain competency at the given level. Level one of “Relationship
& Group Development,” (which is the first component of “Teamwork & Leadership”) required
the student to “Hold membership in an organization for 16 Week(s)” or “Attend an event tagged
with Skill - Relationship & Group Development 2 times” and the link to all the eligible student
organizations and events were right there next to the tasks (Lewis-Clark State College, n.d.,
Skills section). In that way it truly did mirror a video game structure where the quests are
explicitly laid out sequentially and linked. This approach connects both with this study’s CF’s
recommendation of marketing and outreach as well as this study’s observation of a co-
occurrence between SBP programs and direct, concise, goal-oriented language.
After writing this section of the study, I separately analyzed the fall 2020 enrollment of
Hallmark, Hillsdale and State Tech.
18
These three small schools (combined total enrollment of
4,151) had 67.25% male students—25 points above the total sample average of 42.29%. While
this represents an imbalance in the opposite direction, these institutions and others with similar
enrollments, bear study to determine if specific aspects of their work result in greater male
enrollment and possibly retention.
While research on these three institutions’ communications would be useful to higher
education administrators, a great amount of research already exists in this area, but it is most
likely not in the higher education literature. I contend that it doesn’t need to be. More can be
learned about how to communicate with male students from marketing research—again, I refer
the reader to Saad (2013). However, beyond Saad, and other similar researchers, the most rapid
and directly applied research in the world is often not publicly available; it is the market research

18
As stated above, Lewis-Clark University had a relatively average website en todo, and only the specific
Skills webpage was discussed here. Thus, it did not make sense to include it in this cursory review of schools whose
total websites more generally appealed to a masculine sensibility.
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of corporations engaged in direct retail trade. The average higher education administrator can
learn a great deal from simply copying the communication style and aesthetics of average male-
oriented products ranging from Gillette razors to the UFC and Chevrolet trucks.
While Hallmark, Hillsdale and State Tech were in this study’s sample, these descriptions
are simply presented as observations, not findings. However, it must be restated that the other
programs described in this section (University of Oregon, Housatonic Community College,
CUNY , Lakeland Community College, Lone Star College and UMass) were not from the
random sample drawn for this study, and thus should not be considered when generalizing from
this study’s random sample. Their contributions to this study are in the following respects:
1. Their repeated appearance in internet searches (even though their IHE names were
never used in the searches) supports the claim that saturation was reached in this
study.
2. The fact that only six programs came up in this fashion after reviewing 7,600 links
supports the finding of the random sample, that IHEs are not providing differentiated
supports to male students.
3. The dearth of sought programs offered little data for analysis against this study’s CF.
The inclusion of these out-of-sample IHEs allowed for more such analysis.
4. Within this study’s generalizable findings, I estimated that “less than 0.74% of the
nation’s undergraduate students attend a university or college that provides
differentiated supports to its male students for increased retention.” That estimation
was based on comparing the total population at Gardner-Webb University (2,071
enrolled in fall 2020) against the total sample enrollment of 281,554. In encountering
saturation, and only finding six resources total, with only four aimed at men in
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general, only one of which was SBP and two were DBP, it is likely that the estimated
value of 0.74% is an overestimation.

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Chapter Five: Discussion
The findings of this study are as follows:
1. IHEs do not offer differentiated supports to male students.
2. A vanishingly small number of differentiated supports aimed at men of color were
found. As well as an equally small number of male differentiated supports that fell
outside of this study’s representative sample. All of these were analyzed in relation to
this study’s CF. The findings of this analysis were presented in detail in the Findings
section. In summary, this study found and analyzed 17 supports, nine in-sample and
eight out-of-sample.
• Of this combined total of 17 supports, five were identified as having a
strengths-based perspective (three from in-sample and two out-of-sample),
and two were identified as having a deficits-based perspective (both out-of-
sample), while the remainder were categorized as inconclusive.
• Of the 17 programs, 12 were determined to be extant at the time of this
writing (half in-sample and half out-of-sample), two non-existent (one in-
sample and one out-of-sample), and three inconclusive (two in-sample, and
one out-of-sample).
• In conclusion, there are very few differentiated supports aimed at men of
color, and for those programs that exist, their reach is quite limited.
3. What little there was in the way of differentiated supports for male students or male
students of color, did not usually reflect the relevant literature in its design.
4. It is nearly impossible to find male differentiated resources at a given school by
conducting an internet search.
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5. According to their planning documents, IHEs are not planning on supporting greater
male retention.
6. Providing differentiated supports to subpopulations of students is a commonly
employed practice among IHEs for student support and increased retention. However,
providing differentiated supports to male students is an extremely rare (bordering on
non-existent) practice among IHEs.
Other observations include:
• There seems to be a co-occurrence of the use of direct, concise, goal-oriented and
jargon-free language with programs operating from a strengths-based perspective and
a co-occurrence of the use of overly-verbose, opaque and jargon-heavy language with
programs operating from a deficits-based perspective.
• Three IHEs in the sample were observed to employ an overall website design and
communication style that appeals to masculine sensibilities. These institutions also
happened to have higher than average male enrollment (25 points above the sample
average).
Limitations
So few were the found programs and supports, that drawing conclusions about the
general nature of the programs is very difficult. The observed commonalities can only be
reported. However, the complete absence of any of the types of sought programs within the
sample does allow for the generalized statement that virtually no differentiated programs exist to
support male retention in higher education. While the out-of-sample group revealed a handful of
programs, their repeated surfacing during internet search lends itself to a conclusion that these
were the only or some of the only ones that existed at the time of the study. Now that this state of
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affairs has been revealed, a follow up study might seek to find and catalog all of the extant
programs by specifically seeking them out as opposed to employing random sampling. That
study could begin with the programs identified in this study and use that small group to build to
more programs if they indeed do exist.
Implications for Practice
This study brings forth several important implications for higher education practice in
relation to male student retention. It might surprise the reader to learn that I am not a proponent
of differentiated programs of any sort. I sought differentiated programs, because it is the
commonly accepted current mode by which IHEs address the needs of specific subpopulations of
students—not because I think they are the best way to serve students. In my clinical experience
both in youth work in general and higher education specifically, creating programs for specific
identity-based subpopulations does not lead to better outcomes for those populations as a whole,
and usually only marginally may result in specific benefits to the generally limited number of
individuals who participate in those programs. This position has significant overlap with the
general discussion of holistic approaches to retention. Braxton & McClendon (2001), Braxton &
Mundy (2001), Hossler et al. (2009) and Tinto (2001) each discuss holistic approaches to
retention in varying ways, while UNESCO (2022) laments the lack of “programmes and
initiatives addressing this phenomenon holistically, with system-level, gender specific policies”
(p. 14). My clinical experience confirms the assertions of these authors in regards to holistic
practice–what leads to improved outcomes in the large-scale is more expertly executed youth
work and higher education practice across an entire institution, not in isolated pockets. This
entails, as described in the conceptual framework of this study, extensive training for
practitioners: giving them a sound theoretical grounding in Eriksonian and Maslowian human
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developmental theories; an understanding of the role they play in student retention as described
by both Tinto (1975) and Astin (1999); understanding how to support internal locus of control
among students and avoid activities that will engender an external locus of control (Yeager &
Walton, 2011); understanding important average differences between male and female students;
and significant preparation followed by observation and coaching in how to approach students
from a strengths-based perspective. It is this last piece of SBP, that does away with the need for
differentiated programs. SBP necessarily customizes itself to the unique needs of each individual.
When done right, youth workers and educators begin to learn over time which strategies work
with which groups, while not losing sight of the individuality of each group member.
An anecdote from my clinical practice may help explain this better. A college adviser in
our program, placed at a high school which was approximately 45% Hispanic and 45% Asian,
came to me with a problem. She had put on college application workshops and the attendees had
been 75% Asian. She wanted to put on an event solely for Hispanic students, but thought it best
to ask my advice first. I brought her back to her initial training of SBP in our program, and what
SBP means for how she should accomplish her goal of ensuring more of her Hispanic students
were taking advantage of her resource. She came to the idea that more targeted, directed
marketing and outreach would be the solution, not separate programs for subpopulations. This
meant more work for her. She had to closely analyze her data, look at individual students, call
them out of class, go into their classes, and generally be much more proactive in her outreach
and support. It was a more laborious, and difficult solution than the differentiated support
solution she had previously envisioned. It also worked. She was able to bring her numbers nearly
to parity within a year. An interesting side note here is that this situation pertains in every one of
the 40 high schools we serve as relates males and females. If a college adviser simply advertises
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any college access event, the attendees will invariably be 60–70% female. Only through direct,
targeted marketing and outreach are advisers able to approach parity between their male and
female students. In the same way, I believe higher education can learn to support all of its
students, including male students, through basic SBP practices. Of course, this would represent a
significant paradigm shift including time and funding invested in training.
Given the massive shift required to practice SBP on a large scale it may be important to
consider other options that may be more feasible. Differentiated programming, though not the
most effective approach, may be more financially and structurally feasible. Some of the
programs and schools described here warrant a deep-dive analysis including observations,
interviews and quantitative outcome analysis. These include Lakeland Community College’s
Center for Male Success, Improve Your Tomorrow (an independent program serving University
of California, Davis students), Male Initiative Program at CUNY , York College, SIRtify at
Normandale Community College, College of the Mainland’s Minority Men for Excellence, and
Towson University’s Man 2 Man. Such studies could shed light on how these programs impact
their students, what are the most impactful practices they employ, and, importantly, such studies
should also explore how they have survived and thrived as programs. Given that this study did
not deeply analyze any of these programs, I cannot fully recommend any of them as a blueprint,
although I can tentatively say that they all seemed very promising. What I can fully recommend
is this study’s conceptual framework as a blueprint for designing how practitioners within any
program should support their students.
Large-scale institutional changes and new program implementations may be long in
coming; however, individual practitioners do not need to wait for such organizational shifts.
They can individually learn about strengths-based perspective and practice it within their work.
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They can value their male students for who they are and what they bring to the table, and reject
notions of “reconstructing” their masculinity. A good starting point for embarking on such work
would be Appelstein’s No Such Thing as a Bad Kid (2018), any number of Michael Gurian’s
works, a deeper investigation into internal locus of control and its impact, starting with Findley
and Cooper’s Locus of control and Academic Achievement: A Literature Review (1983) and
Yaeger and Walton’s Social-Psychological Interventions in Education: They’re Not Magic
(2011), and I humbly add the conceptual framework of this study.
Next, administrators should subject any male-focused student support program to a
language litmus test to determine whether it is SBP or DBP. An easy way to do this is by
changing out the words “men, male, masculinity,” in the mission statement and other
accompanying language with identifiers of any other group (e.g. women, Hispanic, Black,
LGBTQ, etc.). If upon replacing words such as man, with woman, the mission statement
becomes unacceptable or otherwise objectionable, then the program is DBP in nature, and must
be changed. An easy subject for this language test is the University of Massachusetts Men and
Masculinities Center. See above for their mission statement language to conduct the test yourself.
As an administrator, the discovery of such a program presents a significant challenge, because
the authors of such language themselves hold views and engage in practice which is at best
inappropriate and at worst counterproductive for supporting male students.
Third, though related, practitioners must ask themselves whether they see their students
as individuals or as representatives of a group. Higher education administrators and faculty
leaders must also make this same examination of their institutions. Does the institution treat
students as individuals or as representatives of an identity group? As with the example provided
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above of the college adviser attempting to support more Hispanic students, the more effective
practice entails addressing students as individuals, not as a group.
Fourth, institutions must engage in direct, targeted outreach and marketing to male
students. This should be led by the decades of market research already conducted in the fields of
retail and consumer marketing. Men should be addressed as they are, not as the institution would
have them be.
Future Research
This study points to a number of important future research areas. Following are some
questions future research might aim to answer: What are the causes of the boy crisis, and are
these causes at the root of the lower access and graduation rates of male students in higher
education? Does misandry play any role in the male graduation crisis? To what extent do male
students experience a strengths-based environment in their IHEs versus a deficits-based one?
What are successful male-serving IHEs doing differently? On this last question, a study might
consist of selecting IHEs that are having greater than average success in attracting and retaining
male students, and attempting to determine what they are doing differently from average or
below average institutions. One area of analysis could be, as in this study, their websites. The
research question might be, are IHEs communicating with male students directly, in ways that
appeal to them? Some interesting observations on this question were made during this study as
discussed in chapter four—three institutions whose websites seemed more geared toward male
students, also had much higher than average male enrollment. This bears further study.
Perhaps the most important implication for future research here is that sex should be
treated as a primary variable when studying college attainment in particular to establish the direct
effect of sex after the fashion of Windham et al. (2014). There is a dearth of research in this area.
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Conclusion
The crisis in male graduation proceeds unabated. The larger issue termed “the boy crisis”
is an international phenomenon (Farrell & Gray, 2019; UNESCO, 2022). Institutions of Higher
Education are aware of this to the extent that they review their own publicly available data.
Faculty and staff are aware of this to the extent that they observe the ratios of male to female
students they serve. To date, this awareness has not resulted in action by IHEs either in their
current programming or future planning. Given the massive educational imbalances for men and
boys described in chapter one of this study, IHEs’ absolute inattention to this matter is shocking.
Unfortunately, both for male college students and the nation, this study’s hypotheses were shown
to be true:
• No male differentiated supports for increased retention were identified within the
sample group.
• Of the differentiated supports aimed at males of color identified within the sample
group, only two were determined to share commonalities with this study’s conceptual
framework and had some evidence-base. One of these two was not a program of the
university, but an independent non-profit that simply serves students of the university
(Improve Your Tomorrow, serving students of University of California, Davis).
• Only two IHEs named male students in their planning documents. These two
institutions collectively served 2.4% of the total enrollment of the representative
sample of IHEs.
The path forward for higher education includes a few key approaches. First a broad-scale
acknowledgement of the male graduation crisis is necessary at all levels of institutional power
and influence. The acknowledgement must be followed by prioritizing closing these significant
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gaps both in access and completion. Within this process, institutions should make an
organizational commitment toward the totality of their student bodies (Astin, 1999; Braxton &
Mundy, 2001); and address all of their students from a strengths-based perspective (Appelstein,
2018). What this means specifically in the case of their male students is that IHEs must pull back
all efforts to “reconstruct masculinity” and instead affirm their male students’ masculinity, help
them build from their strengths and achieve their goals. Elements of this study’s conceptual
framework and the evidence-based literature on retention should be incorporated into these
efforts. Additionally, schools experiencing greater success with male students (three were
identified in this study—Hallmark University, Hillsdale College and State Technical College of
Missouri), should be studied in detail to determine what aspects of their work are contributing to
their positive outcomes. And within this process, IHEs should modify their marketing and
communications toward male students to fall more in line with successful corporate advertising
strategies toward males (Saad, 2013). Among other things (as discussed above) this includes
clearly, concisely communicating the institution’s value proposition—in other words, clearly
stating how, when and for how much this degree turns into a career and more importantly a life.
Whether or not higher education is able to make such changes remains to be seen. While
this research revealed that the field is not doing anything to address the male graduation crisis,
individual institutions already knew that they weren’t doing anything. This is perplexing given
that the crisis is known in the data (IPEDS; Shapiro et al etc.), and the solutions are partially
known in the literature (Appelstein, 2018; Astin, 1999; Derby & Smith, 2004; Fulcher Dawson et
al., 2020; Hossler et al., 2009; Kellom & Groth, 2018; Kitchen et al., 2021a; Kitchen et al.,
2021b; Maccariella et al., 2019; Murphy et al., 2010; Patton et al., 2006; Sommo & Ratledge,
2016; Tinto, 1975; Tinto, 2001; Windham et al., 2014) and partially in practice (Arzumanian,
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2007; Fulcher Dawson et al., 2020; Kellom & Groth, 2018; LoRe, 2001; Shelley, 2017; Sommo
& Ratledge, 2016). The only question that remains is: what is preventing institutions of higher
education from doing anything about it?

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Tables and Figures
Table 1
U.S. Degrees and Certificates Awarded by Award Level and Sex at Sector 1, 2 and 4 Institutions,
2010–2020, Plus Totals for All Sectors
Degree type

Men Women
Total n % n %
2019–2020
Total 4,515,461 1,903,291 42.2 2,612,170 57.8
Certificates 671,440 318,874 47.5 352,566 52.5
Associate’s degree 943,674 367,891 39.0 575,783 61.0
Bachelor’s degree 1,941,920 827,121 42.6 1,114,799 57.4
Master’s degree 776,751 306,903 39.5 469,848 60.5
Doctoral 181,676 82,502 45.4 99,174 54.6
2018–19
Total 4,504,307 1,921,576 42.7 2,582,731 57.3
Certificates 683,479 329,828 48.3 353,651 51.7
Associate’s degree 957,309 380,114 39.7 577,195 60.3
Bachelor’s degree 1,916,077 821,752 42.9 1,094,325 57.1
Master’s degree 767,164 306,439 39.9 460,725 60.1
Doctoral 180,278 83,443 46.3 96,835 53.7
2017–18
Total 4,387,481 1,886,343 43.0 2,501,138 57.0
Certificates 643,221 316,913 49.3 326,308 50.7
Associate’s degree 929,654 371,204 39.9 558,450 60.1
Bachelor’s degree 1,882,069 808,165 42.9 1,073,904 57.1
Master’s degree 756,134 307,222 40.6 448,912 59.4
Doctoral 176,403 82,839 47.0 93,564 53.0
2016–17
Total 4,260,789 1,834,809 43.1 2,425,980 56.9
Certificates 604,136 294,591 48.8 309,545 51.2
Associate’s degree 906,762 361,381 39.9 545,381 60.1
Bachelor’s degree 1,842,212 792,283 43.0 1,049,929 57.0
Master’s degree 734,597 304,743 41.5 429,854 58.5
Doctoral 173,082 81,811 47.3 91,271 52.7
2015–16
121

Degree type

Men Women
Total 4,167,552 1,793,185 43.0 2,374,367 57.0
Certificates 587,206 284,677 48.5 302,529 51.5
Associate’s degree 893,583 353,659 39.6 539,924 60.4
Bachelor’s degree 1,801,257 775,639 43.1 1,025,618 56.9
Master’s degree 715,409 297,862 41.6 417,547 58.4
Doctoral 170,097 81,348 47.8 88,749 52.2
2104–15
Total 4,065,686 1,743,631 42.9 2,322,055 57.1
Certificates 574,476 275,241 47.9 299,235 52.1
Associate’s degree 870,461 343,478 39.5 526,983 60.5
Bachelor’s degree 1,763,007 760,147 43.1 1,002,860 56.9
Master’s degree 687,397 282,813 41.1 404,584 58.9
Doctoral 170,345 81,952 48.1 88,393 51.9
2013–14
Total 3,968,570 1,698,031 42.8 2,270,539 57.2
Certificates 546,389 260,854 47.7 285,535 52.3
Associate’s degree 841,604 331,260 39.4 510,344 60.6
Bachelor’s degree 1,730,995 745,949 43.1 985,046 56.9
Master’s degree 679,777 277,306 40.8 402,471 59.2
Doctoral 169,805 82,662 48.7 87,143 51.3
2012–13
Total 3,874,487 1,646,461 42.5 2,228,026 57.5
Certificates 511,151 237,661 46.5 273,490 53.5
Associate’s degree 822,044 320,947 39.0 501,097 61.0
Bachelor’s degree 1,699,574 731,345 43.0 968,229 57.0
Master’s degree 673,764 274,253 40.7 399,511 59.3
Doctoral 167,954 82,255 49.0 85,699 51.0
2011–12
Total 3,788,601 1,607,374 42.4 2,181,227 57.6
Certificates 488,713 227,359 46.5 261,354 53.5
Associate’s degree 803,237 312,984 39.0 490,253 61.0
Bachelor’s degree 1,657,899 712,387 43.0 945,512 57.0
Master’s degree 674,524 274,281 40.7 400,243 59.3
Doctoral 164,228 80,363 48.9 83,865 51.1
2010–11
Total 3,636,766 1,543,557 42.4 2,093,209 57.6
Certificates 482,400 226,873 47.0 255,527 53.0
Associate’s degree 741,478 286,706 38.7 454,772 61.3
122

Degree type

Men Women
Bachelor’s degree 1,601,543 687,829 42.9 913,714 57.1
Master’s degree 652,737 264,546 40.5 388,191 59.5
Doctoral 158,608 77,603 48.9 81,005 51.1
Ten-year total, Sectors 1, 2 and 4
Total 41,169,700 17,578,258 42.7 23,591,442 57.3
Certificates 5,792,611 2,772,871 47.9 3,019,740 52.1
Associate’s degree 8,709,806 3,429,624 39.4 5,280,182 60.6
Bachelor’s degree 17,836,553 7,662,617 43.0 10,173,936 57.0
Master’s degree 7,118,254 2,896,368 40.7 4,221,886 59.3
Doctoral 1,712,476 816,778 47.7 895,698 52.3
Total fewer male recipients in each category 2010–2020, Sectors 1, 2 and 4
Total

–6,013,184 –15
Certificates

–246,869 –4
Associate’s degree

–1,850,558 –21
Bachelor’s degree

–2,511,319 –14
Master’s degree

–1,325,518 –19
Doctoral

–78,920 –5
Ten-year total, all sectors
Total 48,701,327 20,051,950 41.2 28,649,377 58.8
Certificates 9,368,847 3,842,672 41.0 5,526,175 59.0
Associate’s degree 10,166,867 3,939,655 38.7 6,227,212 61.3
Bachelor’s degree 19,373,407 8,250,280 42.6 11,123,127 57.4
Master’s degree 7,975,834 3,170,450 39.8 4,805,384 60.2
Doctoral 1,816,372 848,893 46.7 967,479 53.3
Total fewer male recipients in each category, all sectors 2010–2020
Total –8,597,427 –18
Certificates –1,683,503 –18
Associate’s degree –2,287,557 –23
Bachelor’s degree –2,872,847 –15
Master’s degree –1,634,934 –20
Doctoral –118,586 –7

Note. Adapted from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), “Integrated
Postsecondary Education Data System" from NCES, 2022 (https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-
data). In the public domain.

Table 2
Undergraduate Enrollment for Sectors 1, 2 and 4 by Race/Ethnicity With Number and Percent Fewer Males Enrolled in Each Group
by Year
National total
American Indian
or Alaska Native
Asian
Black or African
American
Hispanic or
Latino
Year Total n fewer
%
fewer
n fewer
%
fewer
n fewer
%
fewer
n fewer
%
fewer
n fewer
%
fewer
2020 15,271,609 –2,286,413 –15 –25,165 –26 –77,563 –7 –441,897 –26 –655,581 –20
2019 15,795,072 –1,999,038 –13 –23,024 –22 –60,753 –6 –411,975 –23 –550,290 –17
2018 15,833,166 –1,898,450 –12 –22,239 –20 –57,781 –6 –406,583 –22 –507,745 –16
2017 15,884,531 –1,782,809 –11 –21,753 –20 –52,597 –5 –389,662 –21 –469,216 –15
2016 15,906,880 –1,739,790 –11 –21,427 –19 –48,037 –5 –391,573 –21 –439,061 –15
2015 15,907,745 –1,724,753 –11 –22,120 –19 –43,833 –5 –396,646 –21 –417,098 –14
2014 15,897,654 –1,742,482 –11 –21,548 –18 –40,349 –4 –411,369 –21 –393,787 –14
2013 15,956,267 –1,764,463 –11 –22,890 –18 –39,245 –4 –417,707 –21 –380,009 –14
2012 16,026,385 –1,877,971 –12 –25,452 –19 –41,475 –5 –452,750 –23 –374,588 –15
2011 16,109,093 –1,928,739 –12 –27,121 –19 –44,050 –5 –485,195 –24 –358,498 –15
Ten-
year
average
– – –12 – -20 – –5 – –22 – –16
123

Native
Hawaiian or
other Pacific
Islander
White Two or more races
Race/ethnicity
unknown
Nonresident
alien
Year n fewer
%
fewer
n fewer
%
fewer
n fewer
%
fewer
n fewer
%
fewer
n fewer
%
fewer
2020 –6,344 –15 –948,932 –13 –107,592 –17 –47,567 –8 24,228 5
2019 –4,926 –11 –849,354 –11 –93,047 –15 –36,879 –6 31,210 6
2018 –4,759 –11 –819,497 –10 –85,348 –14 –32,500 –6 38,002 7
2017 –3,848 –8 –780,098 –10 –77,629 –14 –32,505 –5 44,499 8
2016 –4,278 –9 –775,309 –9 –73,057 –13 –35,817 –6 48,769 9
2015 –3,541 –7 –779,889 –9 –68,673 –13 –42,284 –6 49,331 9
2014 –3,868 –8 –810,448 –10 –64,938 –13 –40,415 –6 44,240 9
2013 –3,895 –8 –831,855 –10 –61,321 –14 –40,958 –6 33,417 7
2012 –4,623 –9 –892,658 –10 –55,257 –14 –56,034 –7 24,866 6
2011 –4,951 –9 –906,468 –10 –49,677 –15 –68,246 –8 15,467 4
Ten-
year
average
– –9 – –10 – –14 – –6 – 7

Note. Adapted from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), “Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System" from
NCES, 2022 (https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-data). In the public domain.
124

Table 3
U.S. Degrees and Certificates Awarded in Sectors 1, 2 and 4 Separated by Race/Ethnicity With Number and Percent Fewer Male
Recipients in Each Group by Year
National Total
American Indian or
Alaska Native
Asian
Black or
African American
Year Total n fewer % Fewer n fewer % Fewer n fewer % Fewer n fewer % Fewer
2020 4,515,461 –708,879 –16 –6,137 –24 –33,268 –11 –125,776 –29
2019 4,504,307 –661,155 –15 –5,784 –22 –31,148 –11 –123,296 –28
2018 4,387,481 –614,795 –14 –4,963 –19 –28,133 –10 –117,358 –27
2017 4,260,789 –591,171 –14 –4,947 –19 –25,949 –10 –115,379 –27
2016 4,167,552 –581,182 –14 –5,326 –20 –23,504 –10 –113,092 –27
2015 4,065,686 –578,424 –14 –4,987 –19 –22,983 –10 –111,103 –27
2014 3,968,570 –572,508 –14 –5,637 –21 –22,261 –10 –108,894 –27
2013 3,874,487 –581,565 –15 –5,958 –22 –20,421 –9 –110,268 –29
2012 3,788,601 –573,853 –15 –5,346 –20 –21,387 –10 –113,052 –30
2011 3,636,766 –549,652 –15 –5,313 –19 –20,741 –10 –106,430 –30
Ave-
rage
– – –15 – –20 – –10 – –28

125

Hispanic or Latino
Native Hawaiian
or Other Pacific
Islander
White Two or more races
Race/ethnicity
Unknown
Nonresident
alien
n fewer
%
Fewer
n fewer
%
Fewer
n fewer
%
Fewer
n fewer
%
Fewer
n fewer
%
Fewer
n fewer
%
Fewer
–164,104 –22 –1,232 –14 –351,609 –15 –29,368 –20 –19,051 –13 21,666 7
–146,323 –21 –1,158 –13 –332,484 –14 –26,281 –18 –16,833 –11 22,152 8
–129,610 –20 –997 –11 –317,668 –13 –24,421 –18 –17,044 –11 25,399 9
–118,655 –20 –1,108 –12 –313,642 –13 –22,012 –18 –19,292 –12 29,813 11
–107,221 –20 –911 –10 –317,394 –13 –19,980 –18 –19,021 –11 25,267 10
–96,054 –20 –837 –9 –322,588 –14 –17,893 –19 –18,129 –10 16,150 7
–87,778 –20 –1,022 –11 –324,512 –14 –16,300 –20 –18,261 –10 12,157 6
–81,481 –20 –1,022 –10 –341,002 –14 –13,012 –20 –20,605 –11 12,204 6
–75,009 –21 –1,219 –13 –336,393 –14 –10,821 –22 –22,949 –11 12,323 7
–66,802 –21 –1,500 –17 –327,965 –14 –8,013 –22 –26,048 –12 13,160 8
– –20 – –12 – –14 – -19 – –11 – 8

Note. The second page of this table is a continuation from the previous page. Adapted from the National Center for Education
Statistics (NCES), “Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System" from NCES, 2022 (https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-data). In
the public domain.
126

Table 4
California State University 6-Year Outcomes by Cohort Year for Male and Female Students, Pell Recipientsᵃ
Pell Recipients
Male and female students combined
Difference =
male students – female students
Cohort
Year
Total n n Cont % Cont n Grad % Grad Total n n Cont % Cont n Grad % Grad
2016 29,425 1,536 5.2 16,718 56.8 –6,709 –60 2.1 –5,112 –9.3
2015 31,794 1,639 5.2 18,473 58.1 –7,172 –129 1.6 –5,391 –8.1
2014 31,364 1,746 5.6 18,134 57.8 –6,954 –132 1.7 –5,270 –8.4
2013 30,197 1,848 6.1 17,229 57.1 –6,743 –174 1.6 –5,015 –8.1
2012 27,177 1,834 6.7 15,283 56.2 –6,127 –132 2.2 –4,553 –8.6
2011 26,198 2,022 7.7 14,049 53.6 –5,926 –150 2.4 –4,123 –7.6
2010 21,278 1,776 8.3 11,407 53.6 –4,866 –206 2.0 –3,367 –7.5
2009 18,830 1,685 8.9 9,756 51.8 –4,836 –191 2.8 –3,194 –7.8
2008 16,823 1,603 9.5 8,059 47.9 –4,051 –225 2.0 –2,631 –8.7
2007 15,927 1,510 9.5 7,228 45.4 –3,945 –216 2.1 –2,286 –6.7
Ten-
year
average
– – 7.3 – 53.8 – – 2.1 – –8.1

127

Note. Adapted from the California State University System Graduation & Success Dashboards (CSU Dashboards), “Graduation and
Success/Graduation and Continuation Rates” from CSU Dashboards, 2023 (https://www.calstate.edu/data-center/institutional-
research-analyses/Pages/graduation-and-success.aspx). In the public domain.
ᵃ Pell status is used here as a proxy for socioeconomic status. Award of a Pell grant is based on the student's familial income except in
the case of independent students who represent a small minority of undergraduate students.
ᵇ "Cont" indicates continuation. Continuation is defined as: "The percentage of first-time freshmen in a given fall term who returned to
the institution in a subsequent fall term." These students have not graduated within the 6 year period, but they have also not
discontinued attending.
ᶜ "Grad" indicates graduation.

128

Table 5
California State University 6-Year Outcomes by Cohort Year for Male and Female Students, Non-Pell Recipientsᵃ

Non-Pell recipients
Male and female students combined
Difference =
male students – female students
Cohort
year
Total n n Cont % Cont n Grad % Grad Total n n Cont % Cont n Grad % Grad
2016 31,821 1,181 3.7 21,523 67.6 –2,281 205 1.8 –2,793 –7.9
2015 32,038 1,085 3.4 21,881 68.3 –2,256 211 1.9 –2,821 –8.0
2014 31,167 1,239 4.0 20,894 67.0 –2,019 267 2.3 –2,744 –8.9
2013 30,285 1,231 4.1 20,356 67.2 –2,219 219 2.1 –2,554 –7.1
2012 28,357 1,336 4.7 18,728 66.0 –1,555 222 2.1 –1,648 –6.5
2011 28,607 1,431 5.0 18,527 64.8 –2,209 303 2.9 –2,517 –7.7
2010 26,752 1,390 5.2 17,095 63.9 –2,320 208 2.4 –2,475 –7.5
2009 30,653 1,731 5.6 18,583 60.6 –2,991 177 2.3 –2,897 –7.1
2008 34,585 2,089 6.0 19,752 57.1 –3,943 265 3.0 –3,492 –7.2
2007 34,939 2,176 6.2 19,133 54.8 –3,419 204 2.5 –3,301 –8.3
Ten-
year
average
– – 4.8 – 63.7 – – 2.3 – –7.6

129

Note. Adapted from the California State University System Graduation & Success Dashboards (CSU Dashboards), “Graduation and
Success/Graduation and Continuation Rates” from CSU Dashboards, 2023 (https://www.calstate.edu/data-center/institutional-
research-analyses/Pages/graduation-and-success.aspx). In the public domain.
ᵃ Pell status is used here as a proxy for socioeconomic status. Award of a Pell grant is based on the student's familial income except in
the case of independent students who represent a small minority of undergraduate students.
ᵇ "Cont" indicates continuation. Continuation is defined as: "The percentage of first-time freshmen in a given fall term who returned to
the institution in a subsequent fall term." These students have not graduated within the 6 year period, but they have also not
discontinued attending.
ᶜ "Grad" indicates graduation.

130

Table 6
Six-Year Outcomes by Sex and Age-At-First-Entry, Totals and Averages for 2009–2013 Cohorts (Graduating 2015–2019)
Enrollment
Men Women
Age group
20 and
younger
>20 - 24
Older
than 24
20 and
younger
>20 - 24
Older
than 24
Total
enrolled
4,172,784 486,477 787,545 4,927,074 462,532 1,037,711
Enrollment (%) 46 51 43 54 49 57
n fewer male
enrolled
-754,290 23,945 -250,166 – – –
Still enrolled at any
IHE at yr. 6
600,884 57,819 69,517 626,859 63,694 112,025
Not enrolled at any
IHE at yr. 6
1,187,567 241,142 393,343 1,066,194 217,160 498,956

131

Completion
Men Women
Age group
20 and
younger
>20 - 24
Older
than 24
20 and
younger
>20 - 24
Older
than 24
Total
completed
2,384,334 187,516 324,685 3,234,020 181,678 426,729
Completion rate 57 39 41 66 39 41
Completed at same
institution
1,869,660 152,141 273,225 2,484,787 144,990 358,228
Completed at different
IHE, 2-year
123,564 10,483 14,906 191,082 13,139 20,393
Completed at different
IHE, 4-year
391,109 24,891 36,551 558,151 23,549 48,109
n fewer male
completers
– – – -849,686 5,838 -102,044
% fewer male
completers
-8.50 -0.82 0.12 – – –
Completion rate
drop-off compared
to 20 and younger
– 18.80 15.50 – 26.48 24.12

132

Note. Adapted from the National Student Clearinghouse, Completing College Signature, “Cohort by Gender and Age at First Entry”
from Reports 2009–2013 (Shapiro et al., 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013). (https://nscresearchcenter.org/). In the public domain.
133
134

Table 7
2020 Fall Male/Female College Enrollment: Sectors 1, 2 and 4 and Ivy League Separately
Enrollment category
All public universities, private
universities and community
colleges
Ivy League
Men (n) 6,492,475 30,078
Men (%) 42.51 47.73
Women (n) 8,778,566 32,934
Women (%) 57.49 52.27
Total enrollment 15,271,041 63,012

Note. Adapted from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), “Integrated
Postsecondary Education Data System” from NCES, 2022 (https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-
data). In the public domain.

135

Table 8
Sector 1 Sampled Institutions of Higher Education With Fall 2020 Enrollment Numbers, N = 15
Institution name and state Fall 2020 enrollment

Total
Male
(n)
Male
(%)
Female
(n)
Female
(%)
Auburn University (AL) 24,505 12,611 51 11,894 49
Clayton State University (GA) 6,376 1,868 29 4,508 71
East Central University (OK) 2,939 1,221 42 1,718 58
Fairmont State University
(WV)
3,573 1,456 41 2,117 59
Florida South Western State
College (FL)
15,141 5,154 34 9,987 66
Kentucky State University
(KY)
2,148 880 41 1,268 59
Lewis-Clark State College (ID) 3,856 1,341 35 2,515 65
Oklahoma State University-
Oklahoma City (OK)
4,949 1,715 35 3,234 65
Towson University (MD) 18,730 7,584 40 11,146 60
University at Buffalo (NY) 22,306 12,249 55 10,057 45
University of California-Davis
(CA)
31,162 12,177 39 18,985 61
University of California-Los
Angeles (CA)
31,636 13,103 41 18,533 59
University of Michigan-Flint
(MI)
5,424 1,981 37 3,443 63
University of South Carolina
Beaufort (SC)
1,999 642 32 1,357 68
Winthrop University (SC 4,406 1,408 32 2,998 68
Sector sample total 178,170 75,278 42.3 102,892 57.7
Sector national total 7,712,419 3,369,570 43.7 4,342,849 56.3
Three sector sample total 268,525 112,276 41.8 156,249 58.2
Three sector national total 15,271,609 6,492,598 42.5 8,778,566 57.5
All sectors national totalᵃ 16,463,432 6,893,077 41.9 9,570,355 58.1

Note. Adapted from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), “Integrated
Postsecondary Education Data System” from NCES, 2022 (https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-
data). In the public domain.
ᵃ IPEDS separates IHEs into nine sectors. This total includes all nine sectors. The six additional
sectors are: Private for-profit, 4-year or above; Private not-for-profit, 2-year; Private for-profit,
2-year; Public, less-than 2-year; Private not-for-profit, less-than 2-year; Private for-profit, less-
than 2-year.

136

Table 9
Sector 2 Sampled Institutions of Higher Education With Fall 2020 Enrollment Numbers, N = 16
Institution name and state Fall 2020 enrollment

Total
Male
(n)
Male
(%)
Female (n)
Female
(%)
Albany College of Pharmacy
and Health Sciences (NY)
686 271 40 415 60
Albizu University-San Juan
(PR)
661 100 15 561 85
Butler University (IN) 4,492 1,779 40 2,713 60
Cedarville University (OH) 4,024 1,827 45 2,197 55
College of the Ozarks (MO) 1,489 667 45 822 55
Gardner-Webb University
(NC)
2,071 746 36 1,325 64
Hallmark University (TX) 929 612 66 317 34
Hillsdale College (MI) 1,466 767 52 699 48
Lackawanna College (PA) 2,043 868 42 1,175 58
Muhlenberg College (PA) 2,046 808 39 1,238 61
Pace University (NY) 7,994 2,884 36 5,110 64
Rocky Mountain College
(MT)
839 431 51 408 49
Sterling College (VT) 139 60 43 79 57
Swarthmore College (PA) 1,437 701 49 736 51
Union College (NY) 669 286 43 383 57
University of Pikeville (KY) 1,348 623 46 725 54
Sector sample total 32,333 13,430 41.5 18,903 58.5
Sector national total 2,820,979 1,192,996 42.3 1,627,983 57.7
Three sector sample total 268,525 112,276 41.8 156,249 58.2
Three sector national total 15,271,609 6,492,598 42.5 8,778,566 57.5
All sectors national totalᵃ 16,463,432 6,893,077 41.9 9,570,355 58.1

137

Note. Adapted from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), “Integrated
Postsecondary Education Data System” from NCES, 2022 (https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-
data). In the public domain.
ᵃ IPEDS separates IHEs into nine sectors. This total includes all nine sectors. The six additional
sectors are: Private for-profit, 4-year or above; Private not-for-profit, 2-year; Private for-profit,
2-year; Public, less-than 2-year; Private not-for-profit, less-than 2-year; Private for-profit, less-
than 2-year.

138

Table 10
Sector 4 Sampled Institutions of Higher Education With Fall 2020 Enrollment Numbers, N = 15
Institution name and state Fall 2020 enrollment

Total
Male
(n)
Male
(%)
Female
(n)
Female
(%)
Cerro Coso Community College
(CA)
5,159 2,243 43 2,916 57
College of the Mainland (TX) 4,335 1,641 38 2,694 62
Heartland Community College
(IL)
4,485 1,876 42 2,609 58
Labette Community College
(KY)
1,464 536 37 928 63
Mississippi Gulf Coast
Community College (MS)
8,677 3,338 38 5,339 62
Normandale Community College
(MN)
9,420 3,814 40 5,606 60
North Arkansas College (AR) 1,604 628 39 976 61
North Central Texas College
(TX)
8,223 3,364 41 4,859 59
Pine Technical & Community
College (MN)
1,724 664 39 1,060 61
Southern Arkansas University
Tech (AR)
769 332 43 437 57
State Technical College of
Missouri (MO)
1,756 1,467 84 289 16
University of Akron Wayne
College (OH)
1,658 635 38 1,023 62
Vernon College (TX) 2,773 937 34 1,836 66
Victoria College (TX) 3,274 1,043 32 2,231 68
Wayne Community College (NC) 2,701 1,050 39 1,651 61
Sector sample total 58,022 23,568 40.6 34,454 59.4
Sector national total 4,738,211 1,930,032 40.7 2,808,179 59.3
Three sector sample total 268,525 112,276 41.8 156,249 58.2
Three sector national total 15,271,609 6,492,598 42.5 8,778,566 57.5
All sectors national totalᵃ 16,463,432 6,893,077 41.9 9,570,355 58.1
139

Note. Adapted from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), “Integrated
Postsecondary Education Data System” from NCES, 2022 (https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-
data). In the public domain.
ᵃ IPEDS separates IHEs into nine sectors. This total includes all nine sectors. The six additional
sectors are: Private for-profit, 4-year or above; Private not-for-profit, 2-year; Private for-profit,
2-year; Public, less-than 2-year; Private not-for-profit, less-than 2-year; Private for-profit, less-
than 2-year.

140

Table 11
Phase 2 Planning Document Search Terms
Search terms
Category
men a priori
men’ a priori
mens a priori
male a priori
African [for African American] a priori
BIPOC a priori
Black a priori
disadvant [for disadvantaged] a priori
female a priori
gender a priori
LGBT a priori
low in [for low income] a priori
low-in [for low-income] a priori
of color [for people of color or students of color] a priori
retention a priori
sex a priori
socio [for socioeconomic] a priori
under- [for under-represented] a priori
underr [for underrepresented] a priori
underse [for underserved] a priori
undoc [for undocumented] a priori
woman a priori
women a priori
child [for child care] emergent
faith emergent
mental h [for mental health] emergent
militar [for military] emergent
parent [for parenting students] emergent
veteran emergent
wellness emergent

Note. Search terms were used for planning documents greater than five pages in length. Shorter
documents were read in full.
141

Table 12
Phase 3 Internet Search Terms
Search terms
men
male
“men's center”ᵃ
male center
men program
male program
women's center

Note. Each search term was proceeded by the name of the given IHE. For example: Hallmark
University men.
ᵃ Terms written in quotation marks were searched with quotation marks.

142 142

Table 13
Codes of Differentiated Supports Aimed at Specific Subpopulations
Search terms Code category
male students a priori
male students of color a priori
BIPOC students a priori
female students a priori
first-generation students a priori
LGBTQ students a priori
low income students a priori
students of color a priori
underrepresented students a priori
undocumented students a priori
disabled students emergent
parenting students emergent
religious students/“faith” emergent
veterans or military connected students emergent

143

Table 14
Types of Evidence-Based, Retention-Focused Student Support Programs
Program types
Study skills courses (Windham et al., 2014)
Student orientation programs/courses (Derby & Smith, 2004; Hossler et al., 2009)
Summer bridge programs (Murphy et al., 2010)
“Callings” groups (Hossler et al., 2009; Kellom & Groth, 2018)
Learning communities (Maccariella et al., 2019; Patton et al., 2006; Tinto, 2001)
Wrap-around projects (Fulcher Dawson et al., 2020; Sommo & Ratledge, 2016)
Student-faculty interaction (Patton et al., 2006)
Retention-focused, stand-alone non-profit programs (Fulcher Dawson et al., 2020)
Identity-based center

144

Table 15
Evidence-Based Programming and Service Elements
Service elements
Social integration (Tinto, 1975)
Academic integration (Tinto, 1975)
Student involvement (Astin, 1999)
Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development (Ashford & LeCroy, 2010)
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Mcleod, 2018)
Organizational commitment (Arzumanian, 2022)
Strengths-based perspective (Appelstien, 2018)
Strengths-based tactics (Arzumanian, 2007; Lore, 2001)
Relationship responsibility (Arzumanian, 2022) or proactive advising (Kitchen et al., 2021)

145

Table 16
Differentiated Programs Aimed at Men or Men of Color Found During Study
Program
Target
population
IHE Sector
Program
housed in
Retention
-focused?
SBP? DBP?
Extant at
time of
study?
In-sample programs
Gardner Webb
Men's Ministry
men Gardner Webb 2
Student
Life/Christian
Life

No ? ? ?
Improve Your
Tomorrow
young men of
color
University of
California, Davis
1 External Yes Yes No Yes
B.L.A.C.K.
Black male
students
University of
California, Davis
1
Ad Hoc group
of Black men
Yes ? ? Yes
Man 2 Man men of color
Towson
University
1
Student Success
Programs
Yes Probably
Not
likely
Yes
ALMA men of color
Pace University,
NYC
2
Multicultural
Affairs,
Community-
Building
Yes ? ? Yes
Gardner Webb
iBelong
? Gardner Webb 2 ? ? ? ? ?
SIRtify
Black students
to become
teachers
Normandale
Community
College
4
Equity and
Inclusion
Yes Yes No Yes
Wayne Community
College 3MP
minority men
Wayne
Community
College
4
CC system-
wide
Yes ? ? No
COM MM4E minority men
College of the
Mainland, Texas
4 Student Life Yes Yes No Yes

146

Program
Target
population
IHE Sector
Program
housed in
Retention-
focused?
SBP? DBP?
Extant at
time of
study?
Out-of-sample programs
Male Initiative for
Minority Men
minority men
Oklahoma State
University, Still
Water
1 ? Yes ? ? Yes
Just Heal Bro
Black men/
minority men?
Towson
Universityᵃ
1
External/not a
program
No Maybe ? Yes
ASUO Men’s
Center
men
University of
Oregon
1 Student group No No Yes No
Center for Male
Success
men of color
Housatonic
Community
College
4
Office of the
Dean of
Students
Yes ? ? Yes
City University of
New York, York
College Male
Initiative
Program and
Men’s Center.
menᵇ
City University
of New York,
York
4 ? Yes Yes No Yes
Center for Male
Success
men and men
of color
Lakeland
Community
College
4
Student
Support
Departments
Yes Yes No Yes
Men’s Center
men and men
of color
Lonestar
College,
Kingwood
4 ? Yes
Mixed
findings
Mixed
finding
s
Yes
UMass Men and
Masculinities
Center
men
University of
Massachusetts,
Amherst
1 ? No No Yes ?

ᵃ The IHE that hosted this was in the sample; however, this was not counted among findings because it was not a program,
147

was external to the IHE and was not retention focused. It was included due to its possible SBP messaging.
ᵇ The website indicates: “All programs and activities of the Black Male Initiative are open to all academically eligible students,
faculty and staff, without regard to race, gender, national origin or other characteristic.”

148

Figure 1
Tinto’s “Conceptual Scheme for Dropout From College”

Note. Adapted from Tinto, V. (1975). Dropout from Higher Education: A Theoretical Synthesis of Recent Research. Review of
Educational Research, 45(1), 38.
149

Figure 2

Conceptual Framework

150

Note. Adapted from Tinto, V. (1975). Dropout from Higher Education: A Theoretical Synthesis of Recent Research. Review of
Educational Research, 45(1), 38.

151

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Men access and complete higher education at significantly lower rates than women (Shapiro et al., 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019; IPEDS; Table 1). From 2010–2020 men attained 8.6 million fewer higher education degrees and certificates than women. This disparity has wide ranging negative implications for the individual men in question as well as the society as a whole. This study examined what approaches institutions of higher education (IHE) were employing to address the male graduation crisis through a qualitative document analysis approach. Using a representative sample of IHEs within the three most common sectors of higher education—public 4-year schools, private 4-year schools and community colleges, which collectively serve 93% or 15.2 million of the nation’s undergraduate students—this study reviewed the websites and planning documents of 46 institutions to determine what current differentiated supports were aimed at male students for increased retention and what planning IHEs were undertaking in pursuit of this goal. Data were analyzed against this study’s conceptual framework, a prominent feature of which is strengths-based perspective.
This study found that the IHEs within the representative sample were neither supporting male students in differentiated settings for increased retention, nor planned to. A conservative estimate is that less than 0.74% of the nation’s undergraduate students attend a university or college that provided differentiated supports to its male students for increased retention. Detailed discussion of what little was found is included along with recommendations for future practice and research.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Arzumanian, Ara (filename)

Core Title The crisis of male college graduation and what institutions of higher education are doing about it

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Education (Leadership)

Degree Conferral Date 2023-05

Publication Date 04/10/2023

Defense Date 02/21/2023

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag College,community college,deficits-based perspective,Graduation,Higher education,institutions of higher education,Male,masculine,masculinity,Men,OAI-PMH Harvest,retention,strengths-based perspective,University

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Samkian, Artineh (committee chair), Cash, David (committee member), Hocevar, Dennis (committee member)

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Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113004182

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