The name is Marlon Brown and I write these lines as a man determined to speak the truth, regardless of what happens to me. I'm a black man living in Brockton, Massachusetts. I've lived there with my family ever since my youth. I went out of town for a while, and attended Cunningham College in the city of Boston. I majored in Computer Science back when it seemed like a lucrative career. Two years later, disillusioned, I left the school. I went back to Brockton State College, where I switched my major to Criminal Justice.nnGoing to Brockton State College felt like coming home in more ways than one. It was so different from Cunningham College. Cunningham College was a rather pricy private school whose student body had been mostly female and white. Brockton State College was more diverse, with an equal number of male and female students on its campuses, located in Brockton and Canton. Also, the school had a large number of black students, which I liked. At Cunningham College, I was one of one hundred and nine six black students, among the eighteen-hundred-person student body. Oh, and did I mention that only forty percent six of the overall student body was male? I'm told the ratio is even worse at other colleges and universities. What's keeping America's young men away from the college campus?nnI had lived most of my life in Brockton, yet I'd only been to Brockton State College once, when I was still a student at Brockton High School. It was part of a field trip we went to with Mr. Edmond Welsh, the History teacher. He was an okay guy.