This isn't the 60's nme, black people have more opportunities than whites to go to college and better themselves. Scholarships are everywhere for the underprivileged. I know many who have taken full advantage of it themselves and have gone from their subculture of single parent homes in the ghetto where they were picked on for studying and getting good grades when all of their peers wanted to party like rappers and planned on dying some heroic gangster death by the time they hit 20. Plenty of white people are apart of this 'ghetto' subculture, and plenty of black people have moved over to the suburban 'white' culture. In the past 20 years it's become really blended.
April is right, most are where they are because they don't want to work, or make bad financial decisions.
I grew up solidly middle class, but most people who went to college (with me anyways) worked part time and were able to live off of it, not comfortably but none of us starved. We all had roommates to split living expenses, were able to afford our vehicles or whatever else we needed, and we were still able to put in 20-25 hours a week working while going to class however many hours a week and spending the rest of the time studying or doing homework. I know I never got my daddy's credit card or any help from my parents, moved out a month after high school and never moved back, also took summer classes so I never got the summer breaks. We all made it not just in the classroom, but outside of it too, and all it took was some hard work and dedication.
And not having kids in our teens.