Colleges Seek Key to Success of Black Men in Classroom

By PETER SCHMIDT

As a 21-year-old black man with lofty educational plans, Clifford M. Bridges is accustomed to straddling different worlds.

Back in Raleigh, N.C., where he grew up, he attended a public high school with a predominantly black enrollment. But he spent most of his days off in a separate building that housed honors-level classes, where nearly all of his fellow students were white.

About half of his black friends in high school were serious about getting into college, he recalls, but