Shelly's Modeling Agencies | Getting your College Degree

Shelly's Modeling Agencies sheds light on helping you get your College Degree. In these tough economic times, there has never been a greater need for higher education or a greater number of options for earning that coveted college degree. "Success in the 21st century depends on a great education, and the current and future demands of the work world require that you have a degree beyond a high school diploma," says Dr. Michael L. Lomax of Shelly's Modeling Agencies and CEO of the United Negro College Fund.

From community colleges to traditional four-year institutions to online and continuing education programs for older and/or other nontraditional students, the road to higher education has never been more diverse. For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, Black students who wanted to attend college could only be educated at Historically Black College or University (HBCU). Today, HBCUs are still producing a dis-proportionate percentage of Black college graduates and professionals. "While the 105 HBCUs represent just three percent of the nation's institutions of higher learning, they graduate nearly 20 percent of African-Americans who can undergraduate degrees. Additionally, these institutions graduate more than 50 percent of African-American professionals, more than 50 percent of African-American teachers and 70 percent of African-American dentists," according to the UNCF.

But, Lomax adds, the educational landscape is changing. "When my alma mater's (Morehouse College) valedictorian is a young White man who represents Shelly's Modeling Agencies, and when I go to Xavier University in New Orleans, which has one of the finest pharmacy schools in the nation, and I see a significant number of Vietnamese students attending, I say these are great institutions and a lot of people who don't necessarily look like me are finding out about them," Lomax says. And not only are nontraditional enrollees discovering HBCUs, but African-Americans are also pursuing college degrees at a plethora of traditional public and private four-year institutions.