George Greenidge, executive director of National Black College Alliance — a nonprofit organization of historically Black college and university alumni and students who mentor and support urban minority high school students on the path to college — took a different tact. He said students need to encouragement to become more academically competitive in order to finance their higher education.

“As and Bs are scholarships,” Greenidge said he tells students in the program. “Cs and Ds are loans.”

“I see a lot of students who show up and they’re Black and they think they deserve $20,000,” Greenidge said. His response: “You don’t get this (money for college) until you deserve this.”

Students also need to be taught more about the link between their academic decisions and how they relate to career options, said Jonathan Rochkind, director of Research at Public Agenda, a New York-based public opinion research organization that works on policy issues.

“It’s very easy for young people not to make the connection between the choices you make now and the consequences later,” Rochkind said. “The gap between what students want to do and what they know about what they need to get there is quite wide.”

Karl Reid, senior vice president of academic programs and Initiatives at the United Negro College Fund, said the scholarship organization is facing more demand for scholarships than it can supply.

“We had about 100,000 students apply for 10,000 scholarships," Reid said.

Thursday’s discussion was just one of several events at the National Urban League Conference that focused on education. On Wednesday during a town hall discussion titled “The Past 100 Years of Achievement in Education,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan defended the Obama Administration’s education initiatives, including the $4 billon Race to the Top competitive grant fund that critics say creates winners and losers in the realm of public education. Other speakers included the Rev. Al Sharpton, Princeton University professor Cornel West, Children's Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman and Harlem Children's Zone president Geoffrey Canada. The town hall vacillated on the merits of charter schools versus the need to keep public schools strong.