For over a century, Historically Black Colleges and Universities
(HBCUs) have had a tradition of working to give every enrolled
student the broadest opportunity for academic proficiency and
success. Today, HBCUs are working to develop innovative
instructional approaches and academic programs (including the use
of new technologies) that are well-suited to meet the needs of their
students and communities, while also promoting social change in the
United States and around the world. Senate Democrats believe that
strong federal support for HBCUs is warranted given their historic
and current importance to nearly a half million students.
The Emergence of Historically Black Colleges and
Universities (HBCUs)
In 1837, Cheyney State College was founded in Cheyney,
Pennsylvania to provide a normal (teacher preparation) and
industrial education to blacks; however, the college did not confer
bachelor's degrees. Prior to the Reconstruction Era (1865-1877),
only a few institutions - including Berea College in Kentucky and
Oberlin College in Ohio - admitted Black Americans. By the time
the Civil War had ended, however, two black institutions were
established by church-related groups to provide black freedmen the
opportunity to earn bachelor's degrees in the liberal arts.
Precursors to present day HBCUs, Wilberforce University in Ohio
and Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, were the pioneers for the
123 colleges and universities established to serve the newly-freed
slaves between 1854 and 1952 because blacks had very limited
access to white institutions.1
In 1867, Congress chartered the Howard Normal and Theological Institute for the
Education of Teachers and Professions of the First Congressional Society of
Washington. The institution, named in honor of General Otis O. Howard, who headed
the Freedmen's Bureau, had its name abbreviated when the current university charter
was approved by Congress and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on
March 2, 1967. Although chartered by Congress to educate the newly freed slaves,
Howard University has from its inception offered education to students of all races,
creeds, and colors. The first student body at Howard included four white girls who were
the daughters of several of the University's trustees and faculty.
In 1872, Alcorn College in Mississippi became the first black land-grant institution under
the Morrill Act of 1862. Subsequently, Congress enacted the Second Morrill Act of
1890 (7 USC 321, 323), which authorized the creation of seventeen public black
land-grant institutions in the South. The Second Morrill Act of 1890 paved the way for
the development of legally separate, state- and federally-supported black and white
land-grant institutions in 17 southern and border states.
Between 1890 and 1899, at least one land-grant institution for black students was
either established or planned in each of these 17 states. At that time, each HBCU
land-grant institution was racially separate and had distinctly inferior facilities and
faculty; and, for the most part, these institutions could not award bachelor's degrees.2
Evidence of the persistence of this essentially second-class status and the
discriminatory treatment of these institutions by the states emerged in the Adams v.
Richardson (1973) case and a number of subsequent reports.3
In 1904, the Kentucky General Assembly passed a law requiring segregation in all
schools, both public and private, in the Commonwealth. Berea College, a small private
institution in eastern Kentucky that had admitted both blacks and whites since its
founding in 1859, challenged the constitutionality of a 1904 state law apparently aimed
specifically at Berea, since it was the only postsecondary educational institution in the
state that enrolled students of both races.4 According to the Berea College website, the
college became an all-white institution but contested the state law all the way to the
U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the state law in 1908.
Litigation and Desegregation
The southern and border states sought to impose "separate but equal" status upon
black students in the wake of the Supreme Court's 1896 decision in Plessy v.
Ferguson.5 Several of the 17 states initially responded to Plessy by constructing
"separate but equal" professional schools for black students, and later, by providing
out-of-state tuition grants for black students. Both of these measures were meant to
block efforts by blacks to gain admission to traditionally white public institutions. By
1933, black college graduates increasingly demanded access to professional school
education. During that same year, some 97 percent of the approximately 38,000 black
students enrolled in colleges were studying at historically black institutions.
Between 1938 and 1954, four Supreme Court cases, each of which addressed the lack
of equality of educational opportunity for black Americans, received national attention
and involved challenges to the "separate but equal" doctrine in Plessy. These four
cases were: Missouri ex rel Gaines v. Canada (1938); Sipuel v. Board of Regents of
the University of Oklahoma (1938); Sweatt v. Painter (1950); and McLauren v. Board of
Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954).6 Each case is significant for special reasons, and
all are notable for their collective attack against categorical discrimination in graduate
and professional education against black Americans.
Each of these cases challenged, and the Supreme Court ultimately rejected, attempts
to preserve the "separate but equal" concept through: the use of out-of-state tuition
payments to black students; construction of separate graduate school facilities for black
students; and establishment of segregated facilities within law schools for black
students. However, the basic question of whether there were any circumstances in
which state-mandated, racially separate educational facilities or programs were equal
were not addressed in these cases.
Remediation and Enhancement
During congressional consideration of the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of
1965 in 1984 through 1986, Senator Paul Simon and Representative Augustus F.
Hawkins assumed leadership roles in focusing Congress's attention on the need to
strengthen and enhance the HBCUs. The Black College and University Act was
enacted as part of the Higher Education Amendments of 1986 (P.L. 99-498). The law
incorporated significant reforms in the "developing institutions" program in Title III of the
Act,7 which was originally crafted by Representative Edith Green as part of the original
Higher Education Act of 1965.
The Higher Education Act, Title IIIB, section 322(2), defines a "part B institution" as
"...any historically black college or university that was established prior to 1964, whose
principal mission was, and is, the education of Black Americans, and that is accredited
by a nationally recognized accrediting agency or association determined by the
Secretary [of Education] to be a reliable authority as to the quality of training offered or
is, according to such agency or association, making reasonable progress toward
accreditation."8
The Black College and University Act made several critical changes in the law which
have benefitted HBCUs, including:
- Providing funding on a formula-driven basis, which encourages institutions to
enroll, graduate, and send to graduate and professional schools low- and
middle-income students;
- Authorizing funding for a specified group of activities to strengthen the capacity of
the institution to better serve low- and middle-income students;
- Encouraging institutional determination of capacity-building activities designed to
strengthen the HBCUs; and
- Providing support for the enhancement of the Historically Black Graduate and
Professional Institutions (HBGIs) and programs in law, medicine, pharmacy, the
physical and natural sciences, and mathematics.
Congress's bipartisan recognition of the unique educational role and responsibility of
the HBCUs has continued and expanded since 1986. Congress has not only increased
appropriations for the Title IIIB program, but has also expanded support, in other critical
ways, through programs authorized in other federal departments and agencies. Since
1986, Congress has appropriated $2.64 billion for Title IIIB.9
Moreover, four American Presidents since 1980 have issued Executive Orders
designed to enhance federal support of HBCUs. As a result of the enactment of
HBCU-specific programs in other legislation, and through programs initiated under
White House executive orders, additional federal resources have been directed to
HBCUs.
Facts and Figures
HBCUs enroll upwards of 370,000 students and graduate a significant share of all
African Americans receiving degrees. While comprising only three percent of the
nation's 3,688 institutions of higher learning, the 105 HBCUs are responsible for
producing approximately 23 percent of all bachelor's degrees, 13 percent of all master's
degrees, and 20 percent of all first professional degrees earned by African Americans
annually.10 Black colleges and universities contribute to the continuing rise of black
intellectuals, professionals, and creative artists which is so evident throughout American
society.
The following facts demonstrate the many successes of HBCUs:
- Nine of the top ten colleges that graduate most of the African American students
who go on to earn Ph.D.s are HBCUs;11
- More than 50 percent of the nation's African American public school teachers and
70 percent of African American dentists and physicians earned degrees at
HBCUs;12
- Over half of all African American professionals are graduates of HBCUs;13
- In 2000, Xavier University in New Orleans individually produced more successful
African American medical school applicants (94) than Johns Hopkins (20),
Harvard (37), and the University of Maryland (24) combined. Two other HBCUs
also placed in the top ten producers of medical school applicants, including
Morehouse (33), and Spelman (38);14
- Spelman and Bennett Colleges produce over half of the nation's African American
women who go on to earn doctorates in all science15 fields; more than produced
by the Ivy League's Seven Sisters combined (Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount
Holyoke, Radcliffe, Smith, Wellesley, and Vassar Colleges);16
- HBCUs significantly contribute to the creation of African American science degree
holders: agriculture (51.6 percent), biology (42.2 percent), computer science
(35 percent), physical science (43 percent), and social science (23.2 percent);17
- HBCUs produce 44 percent of all African American bachelor's degrees awarded
for communications technology, 33 percent of bachelor's degrees awarded for
engineering technology, and 43 percent of bachelor's degrees awarded for
mathematics;18 and
- HBCUs produce 40 percent of all African American doctorate degrees awarded for
Communications.19
Challenges
1. Strengthening and enhancing vital services and programs. As HBCUs
strive to provide vital services and programs to students, President Bush's Fiscal Year
2005 budget proposal would provide a minimal increase of approximately $17 million
(or seven percent)-depriving HBCUs of key resources.
2. Need for increased student financial aid. The majority of African American
families have incomes under $25,000 a year. As a result, students enrolled in HBCUs
disproportionately rely on federal student financial aid programs. The 1995-1996 data
released by the National Center on Education Statistics reveal that of the 17 million
students enrolled in undergraduate programs at our nation's institutions of higher
education, about two million were African American. Of those enrolled, almost 63
percent of African American students received some form of student financial
assistance. For those enrolled in HBCUs, the number is closer to 90 percent. Nearly
half (47 percent) of white students received aid, while over half (54 percent) of Hispanic
students received some type of financial assistance.20 Unfortunately, the level of
financial need that is not met by existing aid programs is growing. The lowest-income
students face $3,200 of unmet need at a four-year public institution. The level of
student indebtedness is also growing. As a result, more than a half million
college-ready students have decided to forego obtaining a higher education - a
problem that hits African American students disproportionately hard and represents lost
potential.
3. Underrepresentation of African Americans receiving doctorates in the
sciences. Over 40 percent of all doctorates for African Americans are in education
(compared to 19 percent for all U.S. citizens). Conversely, African American
representation in the sciences is very low. In 1999, African Americans received the
following number of doctorates compared to all those awarded to U.S. citizens in the
following fields: mathematics - 10 of 538 (1.8 percent); computer science - 16 of 412
(3.8 percent); chemistry - 46 of 1251 (3.7 percent); physics - 6 of 651 (.9 percent);
engineering - 84 of 247 (3.4 percent); and biological sciences - 109 of 3654 (3
percent).21 Additional focus is needed to help African American students gain skills in
these areas.
4. Lack of access to technology. According to a recent study, "HBCUs: An
Assessment of Networking and Connectivity," conducted by the U.S. Department of
Commerce, 12 percent of students and 71 percent of faculty members at HBCUs have
a personal computer (PC). Other research indicates that 55 percent of the students at
predominantly white institutions of higher learning own a PC, as compared to
15 percent of the African American students on these campuses.22
The Senate has passed S. 196, the Digital Wireless and Technology Act of 2003 and
the House Committee on Science has approved H.R. 2801, the Minority Serving
Institutions Digital and Wireless Technology Opportunity Act. Both of these bills seek to
establish a digital and wireless technology program at eligible institutions. While similar,
H.R. 2801 contains several additional provisions which are important to the HBCU
community: the placement of the program at the Department of Commerce, which
affords the flexibility necessary to meet the widely varying needs of HBCUs and other
minority serving institutions (MSIs), and a peer review process that ensures
representation of HBCUs and MSIs. Given the differences between the two bills, the
Senate and House need a formal conference or an agreement to consider H.R. 2801
instead of S. 196.
5. Need to enhance faculty and strengthen the science, mathematics,
engineering, and technology (SMET) student pipeline. Minorities make up less than
14 percent of all collegiate faculty. Of this figure, five percent are African American, five
percent are Asian/Pacific Islander, three percent are Latino/Hispanic, and 0.5 percent
are Native American/Alaskan Native. Although women make up one-third of full-time
collegiate faculty, they tend to be concentrated in less-senior instructional positions and
at two-year institutions, as opposed to research universities. Similarly, African
Americans and other minorities are underrepresented across-the-board in science,
mathematics, engineering, and technology disciplines and careers.
6. Historic preservation. In 1998, the National Trust for Historic Preservation
designated HBCUs as among the nation's 11 most endangered historic sites.
Unfortunately, the cost estimates ($755 million) cited in a 1998 General Accounting
Office report indicate that resources needed to restore and preserve hundreds of
properties on HBCU campuses far exceed the level of appropriations available from the
Historic Preservation Fund for matching grants to state historic preservation officers and
Indian tribes, and the grants available to HBCUs pursuant to section 507 of the
Omnibus Parks and Public Lands Management Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-333).
Endnotes
1. Frederick A. McGinnis, A History and an Interpretation of Wilberforce University, The Brown
Publishing Company: 1941, p. 9; Horace Mann Bond, Education for Freedom; A History of Lincoln
University, Pennsylvania, Princeton University Press: 1976, p. 3; The Traditionally Black Institutions of
Higher Education, 1860 to 1982, U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education
Statistics (NCES), and Historically Black Colleges and Universities, 1976-90, U.S. Department of
Education, Office of Educational Research and Improvement, National Center for Education Statistics
(NCES 92-640), Charlene M. Hoffman, Thomas D. Snyder, and Bill Sonnenberg, June 1992, p. 1.
2. Trueheart, William E., The Consequences of Federal and State Resource Allocation and
Development Policies for Traditionally Black Land-Grant Institutions: 1862-1954, University
Microfilms International: 1981, pp. 32-36.
3. Haynes III, Leonard L., A Critical Examination of the Adams Case: A Source Book, Institute for
Services to Education: 1978; Redeeming the American Promise, Report of the Panel on Educational
Opportunity and Postsecondary Desegregation, Southern Education Foundation: 1995, pp. 10-18;
and Miles To Go, a report on black students and postsecondary education in the South, Southern
Education Foundation: 1998.
4. Drewry, Henry N. and Humphrey Doerman, Stand and Prosper - Private Black Colleges and Their
Students, Princeton University Press, 2001, p. 21. The 1908 Supreme Court ruling in Berea College
v. Commonwealth of Kentucky, 211 U.S. 45 upholding the so-called Day law in Kentucky, effectively
applied the "separate but equal" doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson to private colleges and universities
without requiring that equal facilities for blacks be provided.
5. 163 U.S. 537 (1896).
6. Missouri ex rel Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337 (1938); Sipuel v. Oklahoma State Regents, 332 U.S.
631 (1948); Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950); and McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339
U.S. 637, (1950).
7. On January 12, 1964, President Johnson called for legislation to help "less-developed postsecondary
institutions through professional exchanges, national teaching fellowships and cooperative use of
facilities and faculty." In congressional testimony, Representative Green equated the statutory
euphemism "developing institutions" with black colleges. Both the President's proposal and
Representative Green's bill were reflected in Title III of H.R. 3220 and in H.R. 9567, which became
part of the Higher Education Act of 1965. See H.R. 3220 and H.R. 9567, which became part of the
Higher Education Act of 1965, 20 USC 1001 et.seq (P.L. 89-329).
8. For additional information on the legislative history surrounding the enactment of the Black College
and University Act, see William A. Blakey, "Black Higher Education - A Legislative Victory," New
Directions, The Howard University Magazine: July 1967, pp. 16-19, and Dr. Samuel L. Myers and
Wilma Roscoe, "What is a Historically Black College or University?" National Association for Equal
Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), In Roads, February/March 1987 (updated September
2001).
9. See Appendix A which details Congressional appropriations for Title IIIB of the Higher Education Act
from Fiscal Years 1987 through 2004.
10. The United Negro College Fund (UNCF), 108th Congress, 1st Session Legislative Agenda.
11. UNCF HBCU Quick Facts.
12. UNCF HBCU Quick Facts.
13. UNCF HBCU Quick Facts.
14. Data from American Association of Medical Colleges and UNCF.
15. "Science fields" include engineering, physical sciences, mathematics, computer science, biological
sciences, agriculture, social sciences, and psychology, in UNCF HBCU Quick Facts.
16. National Science Foundation (NSF), Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and
Engineering: 1998-1999, NSF 99-338, in UNCF HBCU Quick Facts.
17. NSF, Science and Engineering Degrees by Race/Ethnicity of Recipients: 1990-1998, NSF 01-327, in
UNCF HBCU Quick Facts.
18. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data
System (IPEDS), in UNCF HBCU Quick Facts.
19. Ibid.
20. NAFEO, Fiscal Year 2004 Legislative Briefing Materials.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
Appendix A
Title III Part B, Strengthening Historically Black Colleges and
Universities Program Appropriations
Note: Figures include all HBCUs-undergraduate/graduate/professional institutions
YEAR ----- APPROPRIATION (in millions)
1987 ----- $51.7
1988 ----- $73.2
1989 ----- $84.3
1990 ----- $95.3
1991 ----- $99.5
1992 ----- $111.7
1993 ----- $109.7
1994 ----- $116.8
1995 ----- $128.6
1996 ----- $128.6
1997 ----- $128.6
1998 ----- $143.5
1999 ----- $166.0
2000 ----- $179.8
2001 ----- $230.0
2002 ----- $255.0
2003 ----- $264.2
2004 ----- $277.5
TOTAL ----- $2,644,015,000
Source: William A. Blakey, 2004
