JUST ABOUT every woman I know with Michelle Obama-like credentials wants the same thing the first lady has: A smart, successful husband with a similar educational background who is also a good father.

But that can be hard to find.

It's an old complaint.

So, when I read about a new Yale University study about dismal marriage rates among highly educated black women, I thought, here we go again. More yada yada yada about how difficult it is for upwardly mobile black women to marry men who are their educational equals and how they should lower their standards if they ever expect to find a mate.

Depressing findings on this subject annoy me because often the unspoken message is: If you are too smart and spend too much time in school, you'll wind up alone and childless. And it will be your own fault.

I mean, honestly, what are you supposed to do? Choose between being successful and having a family?

Besides, even if the statistics are true that the odds are against you, what's the point of having it rubbed in your face?

Plus, I'm a firm believer that there's always hope. Michelle Obama isn't an anomaly. I know other professional, educated African-American women

who've managed to maintain successful careers and have families, despite the odds.

My first inclination was to ignore the study, which was released last month at a meeting of the American Sociological Association. I mean, why dwell on negativity? I have a friend with a master's degree who rolled her eyes when I brought this subject up to her. I mean, what are women supposed to do?

But I got over my reluctance after Hannah Brueckner, a sociology professor who authored the research for Yale's Center for Research Inequalities and the Life Course, explained to me that the goal of her research was to put together a solid database to study the trend, not to criticize upwardly mobile black women who refuse to settle.

"One thing that I hear a lot," she said, "is criticism of highly educated women, especially black women. 'They are too choosy.' 'They are stuck up.' 'They are not able to make compromises.' "

"What we are trying to show is that there is an underlying structure in the population that no individual can do much about."

Once highly educated black women are ready to find mates, they can't always find someone who has reached their educational and professional level. Black women in this category are twice as likely as their white female counterparts to never have married by age 45 and also twice as likely to be divorced, widowed or separated.

The gap appears to be widening, too. Brueckner said "It used to be that in this group of highly educated women, there were few differences . . . that has been completely reversed with people born after 1955. So there's a change that I've never seen before."

OK, so what's the takeaway from all of this research confirming what we already know? Turns out there isn't one. Brueckner's goal was just to document what's going on. She believes it's the first attempt to officially research the life choices of highly educated black women.

Send e-mail to heyjen@phillynews.com. My blog: http://go.philly.com/heyjen.