Black colleges and universities

SIGNIFICANCE: Black colleges and universities are historic institutions of higher education that have targeted African American students. They have been a major education vehicle for African Americans, allowing them to become credentialed and have enhanced intergroup understanding and relations. These schools are typically referred to as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

Lincoln University in Lincoln, Pennsylvania, originally called The Ashmun Institute, was established by Presbyterian husband and wife John Miller Dickey and Sarah Emlen Cresson in 1854 and is the oldest Black institution still in existence. Wilberforce University in Ohio, established by Methodists two years later, is the second oldest. Both facilities have remained in their original locations. However, the first separate educational facilities for Black people were private African schools established by free Black people after the Revolutionary War. Like later Black colleges and universities, the early schools provided a strong sense of Black identity as well as a way in which students could prepare for employment. Work opportunities, however, were often limited to manual labor or two professions that the larger society felt were less threatening: the ministry and teaching.

Many private and public historically Black colleges and universities were established during the post-Civil War era and became the primary means by which African Americans could obtain a higher education in a society that restricted them from attending White institutions, either by law or by social norms. When they were created, many of these colleges were called “universities” or “colleges” but were actually secondary-school-level institutions. When studies that led to the professions of minister and teacher were incorporated into their curricula, these institutions rose to a post-high-school level. In most cases, the post-Civil War historically Black colleges and universities included a theological purpose for all students: the instilling of what were considered Christian values.

By the early part of the twentieth century, American philanthropic organizations had started to help support Black colleges and universities through financial gifts. In the North and West, these gifts were not considered problematic, but in the South, many Whites insisted that fiscal support go to institutions that emphasized vocational and industrial training. Two major Black academics of that era, Booker T. Washington of Tuskegee Institute in Alabama and W. E. B. Du Bois of Atlanta University in Georgia, debated the type of education that African Americans, especially in the South, should receive. Washington emphasized the need for vocational and industrial training, while Du Bois focused on education that would lead to the professions. By the 1930s, however, the debate was moot: most historically Black colleges and universities had developed into full-fledged colleges that required a high school diploma for entrance, and many were increasing graduate studies. These developments began to be supported in the 1940s with the establishment of the United Negro College Fund, which pooled the fiscal resources of financially fragile private institutions. By the end of the twentieth century, enrollment at Black colleges and universities had increased to its highest levels, which demonstrates that they retained their appeal to African Americans.

Demographics

HBCUs are predominantly Black academic institutions established before 1964 whose main purpose has historically been the educating of African Americans. Each must be state-authorized to provide either a junior college education or a four-year bachelor’s degree, and each must be accredited by an association recognized by the US Department of Education or show progress toward achieving that accreditation.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2022 there were ninety-nine HBCUs in the United States. Fifty of these were public institutions, and the remainder were private, not-for-profit institutions. They were located in twenty states, the District of Columbia, and the US Virgin Islands. The number of students enrolled in the colleges and universities rose 45 percent between 1976 and 2011, but then began to decrease. By 2022, nearly 290,000 students were enrolled in HBCUs.

Enrollments in Black colleges and universities represented about 3 percent of total higher educational institution enrollments in the United States in the mid-1990s. Black enrollments increased from the 1960s to 1980, decreased from 1981 to 1986, and then increased in the late 1980s through the twenty-first century. Generally, Black male enrollment has slightly decreased over these periods, while Black female enrollment has increased significantly.

Historically Black colleges and universities welcome non-Black students, and enrollment has steadily increased over the years. In 2010–11, enrollment of non-Black students was 19 percent of the total enrollment, which was up from 15 percent in 1976. By 2022, non-Black students made up more than half of the student body at eight HBCUs, but the rest had Black students comprising the majority of their student body.

Impact

American higher education has always been pluralistic; certain institutions were created primarily to serve students of a particular gender, race, ethnicity, or religion. Black colleges and universities fit this national pattern, even though their histories and original needs may have differed. The impact of these institutions on the African American communities of the United States has been significant: Many of the local and regional African American leaders—ministers, educators, politicians, businesspeople, writers, artists—throughout the latter part of the nineteenth and the entire twentieth century have been graduates of Black colleges. One of the more famous graduates is civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Black colleges and universities, first established from necessity, have continued to be prominent in American educational life because they have a purpose that appeals to their majority clientele, the encouragement and credentialing of an ethnically aware population. At HBCUs, many Black students thrive academically in an environment they consider supportive and socially acceptable.

Bibliography

“Fast Facts: Historically Black Colleges and Universities.” National Center for Education Statistics, nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=667. Accessed 18 Oct. 2024.

Hatfield, Jenn, and Monica Anderson. “Enrollment at HBCUs: A Closer Look.” Pew Research Center, 2 Oct. 2024, www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/10/02/a-look-at-historically-black-colleges-and-universities-in-the-u-s/. Accessed 18 Oct. 2024.

Gasman, Marybeth. "The Changing Face of Historically Black Colleges and Universities." Center for Minority Serving Institutions, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (2013).

Gasman, Marybeth, and Felecia Commodore. "The State of Research on Historically Black Colleges and Universities." Journal for Multicultural Education 8.2 (2014): 89–111.

“Our History.” Lincoln University, www.lincoln.edu/about/history.html. Accessed 18 Oct. 2024.

Strothers, Atiya. "White Faces in Black Places: HBCUs and the White Faculty Experience." Opportunities and Challenges at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (2014): 75.

Young, Paula E. "Black Colleges and Universities." Survival of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities: Making it Happen (2013): 39.