Holy Names University Early Admit Program

Young people also believe mentoring provides them with the support and guidance they need to lead productive lives.

Nationwide, that means today approximately 16 million youth, including nine million at-risk youth, will reach age 19 without ever having a mentor.

One in three youth do not have a mentor.

Young people who had mentors report setting higher educational goals and are more likely to attend college than those without mentors.

Young adults who had mentors, particularly those at-risk, are more likely to report engaging in productive and beneficial activities than youth without a mentor.

The more risk factors a youth has, the more likely they are to say they wished they had a mentor.

More than three quarters (76 percent) of at-risk young adults who had a mentor aspire to enroll in and graduate from college versus half (56 percent) of at-risk young adults who had no mentor.

Governments, businesses, nonprofits, and young people endorse and value mentoring as an important asset in a young person’s life. Yet in America, nearly nine million at-risk youth do not have access to a mentoring relationship.

The longer the mentoring relationship lasts, the greater the value for youth.