Dr. Earl S. Richardson, president emeritus of Morgan State University, says that the failure of President Obama to “address the issue of equity in funding for the Black colleges and equal opportunity for the students they serve is (an) abomination.”
“It’s very difficult to think about HBCUs as one unit, because they’re so vastly different,” says Dr. Ivory Toldson, deputy director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs. “There are some HBCUs that are really standing out and some HBCUs that I’m really concerned about.”
However, overall, Toldson says, “I’m optimistic about the future of HBCUs in general.”
But this general optimism is not a sentiment shared by all.
Dr. William Harvey, president of Hampton University and chair of the President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, decried the lack of support from the federal government on behalf of HBCUs in a September speech in Washington, D.C. In his remarks to open the White House Initiative on HBCUs’ annual HBCU Week, Harvey said, “We face enormous challenges. These are difficult times for our institutions, our students and their families.”
HBCUs’ statuses
In the 2014 State of HBCUs Report, a survey of 105 HBCU stakeholders, including 28 current and former presidents and administrators, listed financing university programs as the top challenge faced by the HBCU community, with affordability and insufficient leadership/governance running close behind.
