A task force commissioned by the Mississippi College Board to recommend ways to improve Black male college enrollment has not made much progress despite having more than a year on the job.

According to The Clarion-Ledger, a task force has met a few times since its creation in June 2008, but it could be another year before they implement any plans.

“There’s still a lot of work to do here,” Reginald Sykes, assistant higher education commission, told the newspaper. “We want to set manageable goals. Once we do that, we’ll be able to implement a plan.”

Improving community college transfers has been talked about as one way to improve enrollment among Black males, who made up 8,452 of the nearly 72,000 students enrolled in Mississippi’s public university system in 2008, compared with 17,597 Black females.

“If we could get more students enrolled in our universities, they would not be checking in at the Department of Correction,” the newspaper quotes Sykes saying during an update to the board.