As competition for the best and brightest Black students continues to increase, some historically Black college and university (HBCU) business programs are positioning themselves to out-muscle even the most acclaimed institutions.
An elite few already claim to compete for students with schools such as Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Finance. Nevertheless, highly competitive business programs are a fairly recent development at HBCUs.
It is no accident that the number of institutions with dynamic undergraduate and graduate level business programs coincides with the expansion of the global marketplace, which continues to offer opportunities to African Americans. The most competitive institutions are attracting not only top students and faculty, but leading corporate recruiters as well.
In 1993, more than 4,400 African-American students graduated with master’s degrees in business. Though this number is roughly 5 percent of the 89,615 MBA students graduating in the United States overall, it represents a 70 percent increase over the number of Black students who graduated in 1985.
Today, roughly 30 percent of all African Americans earning degrees in business graduate from HBCUs. Among schools :graduating the highest numbers c>f African Americans with business degrees, nine of the top ten are HBCUs.
“You either make dust or bite it,” says Dr. Sybil Mobley, dean of the School of Business and Industry (SBI) at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (Florida A&M or FAMU). “This is the first time that the real markets of the future were open to African Americans…. If we don’t stake a claim now, I don’t know when we will.”
Florida A&M offers a five-year bachelor’s/master’s program as well as four-year B.A. and a one-year MBA programs. The school graduated the sixth largest number (219) of African Americans receiving business degrees in 1993. Howard University conferred the most bachelor’s degrees in business, at 289.
