Late last month, as part of a highly ambitious research effort on African American education, the first volume in a series of reports on the state of education in Black America was released.

The African American Education Data Book, Volume I: Higher and Adult Education is a 504-page report that is massive and unprecedented in its compilation of research and statistics exploring the participation of African American students, faculty and institutions in postsecondary education. It was produced by the Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute of The College Fund/ UNCF which was founded in 1996.

The report represents a major achievement for William H. Gray III, the president and CEO of The College Fund/UNCF (formerly known as The United Negro College Fund). Gray, who was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1979 to 1991 and was named temporary envoy to Haiti in 1994, helped establish the new research institute named for Frederick D. Patterson, who founded the UNCF. The institute plans to release volume two, covering pre-school through twelfth grade education, and volume three, discussing school-to-work and school-to-college issues, before the end of the year.

"When I was in Congress, I was continuously frustrated by the lack of good statistics on Black people in higher education," Gray said. "People were trying to make public policy based on very limited data. It was like trying to understand a baseball game by looking through a knothole in the fence where you can only see second and third base."

Some of the report's most significant findings are:

* Black enrollment in higher education is at an all-time high with African Americans making up 10.1 percent of all undergraduate students. This exceeds the previous high of 9.4 percent, which was reached in 1976. By 1984, the rate of participation had declined to 8.8 percent.

* Black enrollment in first professional schools -- such as medical, law and pharmacy -- is also at a historic high of 7 percent. Since 1977, the number of first professional degrees increased 71 percent, although the number of master's degrees declined slightly (20,892) and the number of doctorates was virtually unchanged (1,344).