Mentoring statistics point to a wide gap between young people who want an adult mentor and those who have one. They also show that mentoring is associated with education, volunteering, leadership, belonging, and several measured youth-development outcomes. The figures below distinguish survey findings, program-performance measures, estimates, and evidence reviews so the numbers retain their proper context.
Contents
- Mentoring access and the U.S. gap
- Who has mentors and what they experience
- Education, activity, leadership, and belonging
- Relationship length and helpfulness
- Program reach, matching, and investment
- What evidence reviews measure
Mentoring access and the U.S. gap
MENTOR’s nationally representative 2014 survey found that 34% of young people reported never having an adult mentor of any kind while growing up. The share was 37% among young people identified as at risk. MENTOR estimated that about 16 million U.S. youth, including 9 million at-risk youth, would reach age 19 without ever having a mentor. These are 2014 estimates, not current population projections. The Mentoring Effect
The same report estimated that 4.5 million young people were in structured mentoring relationships in 2014, compared with an estimated 300,000 in the early 1990s. Structured mentoring is only one form of support: naturally occurring mentoring was reported by 57% of at-risk youth and 67% of youth not identified as at risk. The Mentoring Effect
Access was also limited by unmet demand. In 2014, 29% of all youth and 37% of at-risk youth recalled wanting a mentor while growing up but not having one. Among at-risk young adults, 66% did not recall having a formal mentor in elementary school, 57% did not recall one in middle school, and 56% did not recall one in high school. The Mentoring Effect
Young people with school-related warning signs were not consistently receiving structured support. Those with attendance, behavior, or course-performance warning signs were 10 percentage points less likely to have an informal mentor than youth without those risks: 56% versus 66%. At the same time, 21% of youth with those warning signs had a structured mentor, compared with 11% of youth without the risks. Even so, 80% of youth with attendance, behavior, or course-performance warning signs did not have a structured mentor. The Mentoring Effect
Who has mentors and what they experience
MENTOR’s 2023 multigenerational study found that 56% of adults said they had a mentor while growing up. Among adults younger than 40, the figure was 66%. Young adults were three times as likely as Baby Boomers to report being mentored through a program, suggesting that program-based mentoring has become more visible across generations. Who Mentored You? Executive Summary
The 2023 age comparisons still showed uneven access. Today’s 18-to-21-year-olds were 4 percentage points less likely to have been mentored than 22-to-24-year-olds and 10 percentage points less likely than Millennials to report having had a mentor while growing up. When asked whether they remembered needing a mentor but not having one, the results were 67% for 18-to-21-year-olds, 62% for Millennials, and 55% for Gen X respondents. Who Mentored You? Executive Summary
Mentoring also appears to create continuing demand. Among respondents who had a mentor, 57% recalled wanting more mentoring, compared with 50% of respondents who never had a mentor. Adults attributed an average of 56% of their life success to mentors, rising to more than 70% for their most meaningful mentor. Naturally occurring relationships were about three times more likely than programmatic relationships to be named as the respondent’s most meaningful mentoring relationship. Who Mentored You? Executive Summary
MENTOR identified 1.8 million young adults who had grown up with essentially no adult support in the 2023 study. The finding emphasizes that overall mentoring rates can conceal a deeper gap for young people who lack reliable adult relationships. Who Mentored You? Executive Summary
Education, activity, leadership, and belonging
The 2014 MENTOR survey found substantial differences between at-risk young adults who had a mentor and those who had never had one. Among at-risk young adults with a mentor, 76% aspired to enroll in and graduate from college, compared with 56% without a mentor. Postsecondary enrollment was 45% versus 29%. Regular sports or extracurricular participation was 67% versus 37%.
Leadership and civic participation showed similar gaps. A leadership position in a club, team, council, or other group was reported by 51% of at-risk young adults with mentors, compared with 22% without mentors. Regular community volunteering was reported by 48% with mentors and 27% without mentors. These are associations within the 2014 survey; they do not by themselves establish that mentoring caused each outcome. The Mentoring Effect
MENTOR’s 2023 multigenerational study reported related findings across its sample. Young people with a mentor were 92% more likely to volunteer regularly in their communities and 75% more likely to have held a leadership position in a club or sports team. They were also 22% more likely to report a strong sense of belonging while growing up. Who Mentored You? Executive Summary
Mentors were often connected to practical and personal support. In the 2023 study, 85% of young people with a mentor said the relationship helped with school or education issues, while 58% said their mentor supported their mental health. The measures describe respondents’ reports of support, not a clinical assessment of mental-health treatment. Who Mentored You? Executive Summary
| Outcome among at-risk young adults, 2014 | With a mentor | Without a mentor |
|---|---|---|
| Aspired to enroll in and graduate from college | 76% | 56% |
| Enrolled in postsecondary education | 45% | 29% |
| Regular sports or extracurricular participation | 67% | 37% |
| Leadership position | 51% | 22% |
| Regular community volunteering | 48% | 27% |
Source: The Mentoring Effect, 2014.
Relationship length and helpfulness
Duration mattered in the 2014 findings. Sixty-seven percent of young adults found a structured mentoring relationship very helpful when it lasted at least a year, compared with 33% when it lasted less than a year. Always planning to enroll in and graduate from college was reported by 86% of young adults in relationships longer than a year, versus 77% in relationships lasting a year or less.
Other reported outcomes were also higher for relationships lasting more than a year. Regular sports participation was 77% versus 70%; leadership-position participation was 61% versus 50%; and regular volunteering was 61% versus 53%. These comparisons describe different relationship-duration groups and should not be treated as proof that duration alone produced the differences. The Mentoring Effect
Both formal and informal relationships were widely viewed as helpful. Ninety-five percent of young adults with formal mentoring relationships found them helpful, including 51% who found them very helpful. Among those with informal mentoring relationships, 99% found them helpful, including 69% who found them very helpful. The Mentoring Effect
The possibility of a continuing cycle also appeared in the survey: 86% of all mentored youth and 85% of mentored at-risk youth said they were interested in becoming mentors. That interest is a reported intention, not a count of people who later became mentors. The Mentoring Effect
Program reach, matching, and investment
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention’s Juvenile Mentoring Performance Report provides a program snapshot for July through December 2020. OJJDP-funded awards served 114,227 youth and grantees recruited 14,204 new mentors during that six-month period. Ninety-three percent of program youth were matched with a mentor, and 90% of mentors remained with the program at the end of the period. Juvenile Mentoring Performance Report: July–December 2020
Within the same report, 70% of program youth showed behavioral improvement. Of 38,635 youth who exited an OJJDP mentoring program during July–December 2020, 78% exited successfully. These are performance measures for OJJDP-funded programs in the stated period, not estimates for every mentoring program in the United States. Juvenile Mentoring Performance Report: July–December 2020
MENTOR’s 2022–2024 Impact Snapshot reported that the organization impacted 2,248,282 young people nationwide over the three years covered by the report. It also reported helping secure $313 million in total Youth Mentoring Grant investment across federal fiscal years 2022–2024 and recorded 79,037 searches for local mentoring opportunities through the Mentoring Connector. 2022–2024 Impact Snapshot
What evidence reviews measure
Evidence reviews generally find small, statistically significant effects, with results varying by outcome and mentoring model. A 20-study meta-analysis covering literature from 1970–2005 found a small statistically significant effect of youth-development mentoring on delinquency, with a standardized mean difference of 0.23. A separate 19-study analysis from the same literature period found a statistically significant educational-achievement effect of d=0.14. The 2008 publication date and literature coverage should be kept distinct from the age of the studies. Practice Profile: Mentoring for Youth Development
A later 51-study meta-analysis covering literature from 1975–2017 found a statistically significant academic-achievement effect with a standardized mean difference of 0.08. A 43-study analysis from the same coverage period found a small statistically significant effect on social functioning, with a standardized mean difference of 0.19. In contrast, the six-study analysis in the practice profile found no statistically significant effect on substance use. Practice Profile: Mentoring for Youth Development
Youth-initiated mentoring showed statistically significant effects across several outcomes in a 2021 practice profile. The psychological-outcome effect was g=0.36 across eight studies, the school or academic effect was g=0.32 across five studies, and the social-outcome effect was g=0.35 across seven studies. These figures summarize evidence covering 2006–2019. Practice Profile: Youth-Initiated Mentoring for Youth Development
For youth with emotional or behavioral problems, an evidence review published in 2023 reported a statistically significant internalizing-symptom effect of Hedges g=0.260 across eight studies and a statistically significant externalizing-symptom effect of Hedges g=0.479 across nine studies, drawn from 13 studies overall. Effect sizes are evidence-review measures; they are not percentages of young people improved. Practice Profile: Mentoring Youth With Emotional and Behavioral Problems