For more than half a century, historically Black colleges and universities educated thousands of teachers, social workers, ministers, physicians, lawyers, scientists in all fields, aviators and business men and women.
As previously closed doors across the South opened, HBCUs discovered they had no real plan for maintaining and growing in the post-segregation era.
Today, with as many college-bound Black students headed to majority institutions as HBCUs, many HBCUs are struggling. Thousands of once-captive college-bound students are beyond their competitive reach. Only a handful of HBCUs have successfully navigated the transition, while most have become more marginal than they were during the days of segregation. Most are scrambling to reinvent in order to not only retain their traditional audiences, but to broaden their appeal to other minority and non-minority groups.
In the last 20 years, lawsuits seeking more equitable funding at state-controlled institutions have replaced racial segregation litigation of the previous era, with some cases (Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi and the Carolinas) settled and another (Maryland) pending.
Meanwhile, the private benefactors who were once clear about the need to fund and support HBCUs in an era of segregation are rapidly disappearing today, as the HBCU mandate message becomes fuzzier and fuzzier.
Amid the long-held belief that historically Black colleges and universities have become less pertinent in their role of serving Black students within a well-integrated society, the future of such institutions is uncertain.
HBCUs, like many of the nation’s institutes, tackle hurdles of financial instability and experience lower graduation rates. However, the minority-serving schools tend to bear more accountability in their performance efforts, as the initial goal of producing the nation’s most high-achieving Black scholars has struggled alongside competing non-HBCUs.
