When college leaders across the nation begin rolling out their welcome mats for the coming school year, few are likely to be more anxious about the days ahead than those operating historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).
The institutions — 49 are private nonprofit institutions and 51 are public institutions — are facing increasingly tough times, with few exceptions, as warning flags abound and time appears to be running out on solving the myriad challenges that these schools face.
Many HBCUs are facing enrollment challenges (a key source of revenue for these tuition-dependent institutions), employment competition, shrinking support from local, state, federal and private funders and have been unable to sustain a stable cadre of chief executives and fundraisers.
“We’ve got to step it up,” says Dr. Norman C. Francis, the higher education icon speaking to a select audience of HBCU boosters this spring in Washington, D.C.
Francis, who retired in 2015 after 47 years as president of Xavier University of Louisiana, offered a sobering brief assessment of the days and years ahead for HBCUs.
Francis’ comments resonate across the nation on public and private, large urban and small rural campuses as institutions search for strategies to effectively address many of the tough tasks, say higher education analysts and industry observers.
“I think most open access institutions are fragile,” says Dr. DeShawn Preston, a higher education research fellow at the Atlanta-based Southern Education Foundation, an education advocacy think tank.
