Blueprints for Belonging: Black Students’ Aspirations and the Architecture of College Futures

• In Event: Unforgetting Legal Precedent: Illuminating the Roots of Discrimination and Forging Equitable Futures in Education

Abstract

Study Purpose
This paper employs an Afrofuturist lens to examine the higher education aspirations of Black high school students. It explores how students may conceptualize their pursuit of higher education as a pathway to mobility and possibility. It centers youth voice and lived experience in constructing a vision of college readiness grounded in affirmation, cultural identity, and resilience.
The study aims to:
• Examine how student aspirations are impacted by formal legal protections (e.g., Title VI, Title IX) in ensuring racially just and gender-equitable access to college.
• Understand how students express and sustain their aspirations, with or without support.
• Analyze how college-going narratives reflect students’ views of themselves, understanding of themselves, their race, and the social context.

Conceptual Framework
Guided by PVEST (Spencer, 2008), this study emphasizes the meaning-making processes of Black youth as they navigate under-resourced educational environments. PVEST helps surface how their evolving sense of identity intersects with their perceptions of support, and future possibility. This paper reflects on historical eras of educational polycrisis, when students of color were disproportionately harmed by policy but still found ways to persist. It insists that Black students will always be present, relevant, and deserving of advocacy. It calls on educators and policymakers to “unforget” the future systems of support we have drawn upon in the past, especially in moments when current legal analysis falters.

Methods
This 3-year quantitative study draws from 300 survey responses from California high school seniors. About half the students participate in a college access program; the rest do not. The analysis focuses on Fall 2024, Spring 2025, and Fall 2025 data. Surveys captured students’ college and career aspirations and perceived supports and barriers. Data was cleaned and analyzed using SPSS, with particular attention to how aspirations are shaped by interventions, political divestment, and students’ college identity.

Findings
Two major themes emerged:
1. Protecting the Future from the Past: Students prioritized cultural authenticity and community connection while aspiring to enter predominantly white institutions.
2. The Power of Mentorship: Culturally responsive mentorship and timely information helped students translate their goals into action.
These “blueprints of belonging” are deeply personal and political, shaped by historical knowledge and the desire to be valued. College and career knowledge disparities underscore the need for culturally responsive mentoring and college readiness practices, especially now, when Supreme Court decisions regarding race-based college admissions have a disparate impact on college access for Black and Brown students.

Study Significance
This study positions aspirations not just as outcomes, but as tools to resist erasure. In a climate hostile to race-conscious initiatives, this research affirms the need for education practices that center culturally rooted belonging as core to college readiness. The study highlights how student aspirations expose the gap between Title VI protections and daily realities. While Title VI is intended to prevent racial discrimination, federal divestment from equity initiatives reduces access to school counseling, rigorous coursework, and affirming guidance (Hines et al., 2022). These barriers reflect the ongoing presence of structural anti-Blackness in college access.

Author

• Tr’Vel Lyons, University of Southern California