This Study examined issues related to persistence in higher education among African American students, using the prominent model proposed by Vincent Tinto. The intentions were to examine the growing gender gap among African American students. The study examines factors from the Tinto model such as high school GPA, College GPA, college social integration and academic integration to try and explain the effects of gender among African American students. This research also attempts to elaborate the Tinto model by considering high school extracurricular activities as a pre-entry attribute that has an effect on persistence in higher education. Use of the Tinto model, even in an elaborated state, did not explain the effects of gender among African American students. This research suggests that other factors not included in the model have some effect on student persistence; one such factor could be gender socialization which can lead to different patterns in educational achievement.