Tag Archives: HBCU

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HBCUs: Still Struggling After All These Years

Five years ago, Reed Hastings, the co-founder and CEO of Netflix, and his wife, Patty Quillin, donated $120 million to two historically Black colleges, Spelman College and Morehouse College, and the United Negro College Fund. “HBCUs have a tremendous record,” Hastings and Quillin said in a news release announcing their gifts.

I wrote about the optimism at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU’s) at that time, when they seemed to be on a roll with large grants from philanthropists and a commitment to improvement.

Five years later, however, graduation rates remain dreadful, leaving many Black students, particularly Black men, with abandoned dreams, college debt and no degree. And without that degree, the default rate of borrowers is three times as high as it is among those who graduated.

There are 104 HBCUs in the United States, of which 78 are “ranked”, been placed on a specific list by a third-party organization, such as U.S. News & World Report. The average four-year graduation rate for first-time, first-year students at the ranked HBCUs in 2025 was an abysmal 23.2%. The average six-year graduation rate for students at ranked HBCUs in 2025, 32%, was better, but still dreadful.

In contrast, the average four-year graduation rate for US colleges in 2025 was 50.8% and the average six-year rate was 60.1%, almost double the rate at ranked HBCUs.  

It should be noted, however, the graduation rate at HBCUs varies widely. According to U.S. News & World Report, the top five HBCUs for graduation rates, based on 2025 data, were:

RankInstitution NameStateFour-Year Graduation Rate
1Spelman CollegeGA68%
2Howard UniversityDC60%
3Xavier University of LouisianaLA48%
4Fort Valley State UniversityGA44%
5Virginia Union UniversityVA41%

In contrast, the 4-year graduation rate at LeMoyne-Owen College, a private, historically black Christian college in Memphis, Tennessee is 7% and the 6-year graduation rate is 18%, while the 4-year graduation rate at Alabama State University in Montgomery, Alabama is 14% and the 6-year rate is 28%. Additionally, the retention rate stands at 60%, which is also below average, ranking in the bottom 15%.

That raises questions about why philanthropist MacKenzie Scott recently pledged $38 million to Alabama State and made pledges to some other HBCUs with abysmal graduation rates, such as the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (4-year graduation rate – 19%; 6-year rate – 37%) and Morgan State University ( 4-year graduation rate – 13%; 6-year rate – 37%).

A  report from the Center for Minority Serving Institutions at Rutgers University included the observation that “philanthropists should consult data to make better informed decisions around giving, considering the donations to both high performing institutions to reward growth and lower performing institutions to stimulate growth.” The problem with that approach, however, is it can endorse propping up failing institutions that are failing their students.

They are not doing their students any favors if they end up leaving so many with debt and no degree.

One issue for Black HBCU’s is that some have an almost blanket acceptance rate. That leads to unready students, which inevitably leads to the low graduation rates. For example, LeMoyne-Owen College has a 97% acceptance rate and Alabama State University has a 98% acceptance rate. 

Too often, high acceptance rates are accompanied by low scores in college readiness tests. 

A key standardized college admissions test that assesses high school students’ academic readiness for college is the ACT test. A student’s Composite score, ranging from 1-36, is the average of a student’s English, math, and reading test scores. 

Some American universities look for students with scores in the 30s, others may consider scores in the mid-20s as competitive. According to ACT, the average score is 34 for admitted students at Harvard University and 23 for admitted students at University of Massachusetts Boston. 

The average ACT composite score of students admitted to Spelman College is 26; for Howard University, 24. In contrast, the average ACT composite score of students admitted to LeMoyne-Owen College is 16, to Alabama State University, 18. The ACT college readiness benchmarks range from 18 for English to 23 for Science.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr., former president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, a Washington D.C.-based, nonprofit organization that represents 47 public HBCUs, has attributed much of the high non-completion rate to the HBCUs accepting a lot of students with low standardized test scores and GPAs, students encountering time-management and behavioral issues, and a lack of financial literacy.

Many Black HBCU students also have to deal with being first generation college attendees, who tend to graduate at much lower rates across the board than continuing-generation students.  

The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) has also found that students at HBCUs borrow more than students from non-HBCUs because African American families generally have lower assets and incomes that limit their ability to contribute toward college expenses. 

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median income of Black households in the United States in 2024 was $56,020, significantly lower than the $92,530 median income figure for non-Hispanic White households. ”With only minor fluctuations, the racial gap in median income has remained virtually unchanged for more than a half-century,” the Bureau noted. 

High HBCU drop-out rates compound the problem of paying off college debt as drop-outs earn less. 

Too many Black students at HBCUs also come from failing high schools with a below-average teaching environment involving inexperienced and less qualified educators and benefit from easy college admission standards at some of the less-competitive HBCUs. 

A recent UNCF report pointed out that poor high school preparation often means Black students  are more likely to need remedial college courses than other student groups, and the lack of preparedness  hampers their success. “Increasing the number of African Americans receiving college degrees depends in large measure on whether students receive a quality K-12 education that prepares them for college coursework and college success,” the report said.

In the midst of all this, there are some hopeful positives. Some HBCUs have been seeing record enrollment growth and overall HBCU enrollment for the 2024-2025 school year rose by 5.9% compared to Fall 2023, the third year of increases. It’s worth noting, however, that enrollment growth at some HBCUs is occurring as the Associated Press has just reported that new enrollment figures from 20 selective colleges provide mounting evidence of a backslide in Black enrollment. On almost all of the campuses, Black students account for a smaller share of new students this fall than in 2023. At Princeton and some others, the number of new Black students has fallen by nearly half in that span.

In the fall of 2025, North Carolina A&T State University held down the #1 spot as the largest HBCU for the twelfth straight year with 15,275 students, up 6.7% from the previous school year. In the same vein, Spelman College increased its 2024 enrollment by 24% in 2025, Winston-Salem State University had a 4.7% enrollment increase and Shaw University in  Raleigh, North Carolina, founded in 1865, saw a 45% increase in new students in the fall of 2025,

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports, however, that HBCU enrollment growth is not shared equally across all the nation’s HBCUs. For example, enrollment fell at eight of the 10 HBCUs in North Carolina over the last decade, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, and overall enrollment at HBCUs has yet to rebound to its 2010 peak of 327,000. In addition, enrollment growth will need to be accompanied by increases in graduation rates in some cases. For example, the 4-year graduation rate at Shaw University is only 9% and the 6-year graduation rate is just 16%.

As was the case five years ago, if philanthropists and HBCUs really want to help Black college students, they will put money and effort into ensuring they get a K-12 education that prepares them for college and that HBCU students graduate with a good education. HBCUs that fail this test are still doing their students no favors, undercutting the very people they claim to champion.

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It’s Not the College Grads Who Need Help; It’s the Dropouts

Most of the discussion about the wisdom and impacts of President Biden’s college loan cancellation announcement is focusing on college graduates.

I maintain that college graduates, certainly including couples with annual income of $250,000, are in the strongest position to pay back their student loans. The students who got screwed the most are those who took out loans and failed to graduate. They got stuck with the costs of college, but none of benefits of a college degree.

Accordion got the Social Security Administration, men with bachelor’s degrees earn approximately $900,000 more in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates. Women with bachelor’s degrees earn $630,000 more. Men with graduate degrees earn $1.5 million more in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates. Women with graduate degrees earn $1.1 million more.

An estimated 38.6% of the 43 million student debtors in the United States — roughly 16.6 million people — have debt but no degree six years after first entering college, according to National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) data. 

At the University of Oregon, 27.4% of the students seeking bachelors degrees in the class of 2015 had still not graduated 8 years later.  Of these 1,730 students, 25 were still working towards their degree, 1,148 had transferred to a different institution, and the remaining 556 are assumed to have dropped out. 

At Oregon State University,  there were 6,316 bachelors degree candidates in the class of 2015 . After 8 years, just 63.8% of this class had eventually their degree. Of the remaining 2,288 students, 79 were still working towards their degree, 1,406 had transferred to a different institution, and the remaining 802 are assumed to have dropped out. 

The institutions with the highest dropout rates are historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). HBCUs have an average graduation rate of just 35%, according to Best Colleges.  

When The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education surveyed 64 of 100 historically black colleges and universities, only 5 of those schools surveyed graduated more than 50 percent of their students:

Spelman College, 69 percent graduation rate;
Howard, 65 percent;
Hampton, 59 percent;
Morehouse, 55 percent;
Fisk University, 52 percent.

At half of the HBCUs surveyed, the black student graduation rate was 34 percent or lower. And there were seven HBCUs in which fewer than one in five black students earn a bachelor’s degree within six years.

Johnny C. Taylor Jr., president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, a Washington D.C.-based, nonprofit organization that represents 47 public HBCUs, attributes much of the high non-completion rate to the HBCUs accepting a lot of students with low standardized test scores and GPAs, students encountering time-management and behavioral issues, and a lack of financial literacy.

Some black students failing at HBCUs, just like some other college dropouts, would also be better off if they had chosen, instead, two-year schools, one-year associate’s degree programs, community colleges, trade schools and the like.

“It seems we’re telling our kids that if you don’t go to a four-year school,” Taylor said, “then you are wasting your mind.”

In a recent interview with Newsweek, Sen. Kevin Cramer (R – North Dakota) took a dim view of college dropouts and was disinclined to give them any help with college debt. “If you look at the statistics of freshmen who don’t finish college, but they take out student debt in order to experiment with college—if you start forgiving that first $10,000 for people, that just enhances these reckless decisions,” he said.

I disagree. With no degree, they’re the ones least able to benefit from their college experience and the most likely to need a leg up now.

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The flaw at historically black colleges and universities: dreadful graduation rates

HBCUgrads

Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have a long history in the United States.

They played a significant role, for example, in educating Black veterans returning from WWII. According to the journalist and historian Edward Humes, writing in The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 12% of Black veterans went to college on the GI Bill, with upward of 90% of those attending HBCUs.

Now, in the wake of renewed black activism, HBCUs appear to be on a roll.

In the wake of increased calls for racial justice after the killing of George Floyd in May 2020, six HBCUs, Howard University, Xavier University of Louisiana, Tuskegee University,  Hampton University, Morehouse College and Spelman College, announced in July that they had received substantial donations from MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Howard received $40 million, Hampton, $30 million, Xavier, Morehouse and Tuskegee, $20 million.

The previous month, Reed Hastings, the co-founder and CEO of Netflix, and his wife, Patty Quillin, said they were donating $120 million to Spelman College, Morehouse College and the United Negro College Fund.

Frosting on the cake came on August 11 when Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), a Howard University graduate, became the first graduate of a HBCU to become a vice-presidential candidate of the Democratic or Republican party.

“I became an adult at Howard University,” Harris told the Washington Post in 2019. “Howard very directly influenced and reinforced — equally important — my sense of being and meaning and reasons for being.”

“HBCUs have a tremendous record,” Hastings and Quillin said in a news release announcing their gifts.

The 104 HBCUs do have a good record in some things, but not in one critical area, graduation rates. Their overall performance here is abysmal and large gifts to a few HBCUs likely won’t change that.

The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) has tried to sugarcoat the situation by asserting that “…in their most important function—enrolling and graduating college students—HBCUs perform far better than their small size and lack of resources would lead one to expect.” The problem is that the UNCF data is misleading.

For example, a 2018 UNCF report noted that “Florida HBCUs represent just 4 percent of the state’s four-year colleges and universities but enroll 9 percent of all black undergraduates and award 18 percent of all bachelor’s degrees to black college graduates.” More meaningful data is the graduation rate at individual HBCUs.

There are HBCUs located in 19 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands. According to the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which represents 47 public HBCUs, the graduation rate for HBCUs is only 35%.

When the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education surveyed 64 HBCUs in 2014, only five graduated more than 50 percent of their students within six years: Spelman- 69%; Howard, 65%; Hampton, 59%; Morehouse, 55%; Fisk, 52%. At seven HBCUs, fewer than one in five Black students earned a bachelor’s degree within six years.

The current U.S. Department pf Education’s College Scorecard shows an improvement in the graduation rate at Spelman, but declines at the other four schools: Spelman- 77%; Howard, 61%; Hampton, 50%; Morehouse, 52%; Fisk, 41%.

The Scorecard reports appalling graduation rate at some other HBCUs as low as:

  • Alabama State University, Montgomery, AL – 31%
  • University of the District of Columbia, Washington, D.C. – 28%
  • American Baptist College, Nashville, TN – 27%
  • Shaw University, Raleigh, NC – 27%
  • Langston University, Langston. OK – 23%

Then there’s Shorter College, a private, faith-based, two-year liberal arts college in N. Little Rock, AR. The average annual cost, which includes tuition, living costs, books, and fees minus the average grants and scholarships for federal financial aid recipients, is $16,044. The college says on its website, “The goals of faculty, staff and administrators are the same: student success.” But its graduation rate is only 8%, according to the College Scorecard.

shortercommencement

In comparison, about 62% of students who began seeking a bachelor’s degree at a 4-year institution in the United States in the fall of 2012 completed that degree at the same institution within 6 years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. In other words, by 2018 some 62 percent of students had completed a bachelor’s degree at the same institution where they started in 2012.

One thing behind poor graduation rates at HBCUs may be poor preparation in high school.

For the Class of 2022, for the fifth year in a row, the average score on ACT for African American students dropped. In 2022, the average score was 16.1, down from 16.3 in 2021, 16.7 in 2020 and 17.1 in 2017. The average score for Whites also dropped to 21.3 from  21.7 in 2021, 22.0 in 2020, and 22.4 in 2017.

Based on score results, the American College Testing organization calculates the percentage of students who took the ACT test who are adequately prepared to take on a college-level curriculum. In 2022, 27 percent of Black test takers were rated ready for college-level courses in English, compared to 65 percent of Whites. In mathematics, only 9 percent of Backs were rated college-ready compared to 40 percent of Whites. In science, ACT data shows 10 percent of Blacks were ready for college-level courses compared to 42 percent of Whites. In reading, 18 percent of Blacks achieved the minimal benchmark for college readiness compared to 51 percent of Whites.

The most striking statistic is that only 5 percent of all Black test takers were rated ready for college-level courses in all four areas of English, mathematics, science, and reading. Whites were nearly six times as likely as Blacks to be prepared for college-level work in all four areas.

The problem of pitiful graduation rates at so many HBCUs is compounded by the debt accrued by Black students who don’t graduate. It’s hard enough for many graduates to pay off their college debt. Median total debt after graduation from Fisk College, for example, is $28,000 – $30,000, which translates into monthly loan payments of $291- $317 on a standard 10-year payment plan.

But if a student incurs $30,000 of college debt and never earns a degree, the burden is substantially greater. When they drop out, they don’t get the better job or the wage increase that graduates get initially and over time. One result is that the default rate on federal student loans is three times higher for students who drop out without a diploma. Adding insult to injury, drop-outs in default don’t have access to federal student aid that could help them go back and finish school for a degree.

Recent research shows one reason for poor graduation rates at HBCUs could well be poor preparation during students’ K-12 schooling.

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education reported in October 2021 that in a year when many test dates were postponed or canceled due to the global pandemic and when many colleges and universities made standardized test scores optional, only 1.2 million members of the 2021 graduating class of high school seniors took the ACT college entrance examination. This was down from 1.6 million in 2020 and more than 2 million in 2017.

For the Class of 2021, the average score on the ACT dropped to 20.3 on a scale of 1 to 36. This was the lowest average score in more than a decade. For the fourth year in a row, the average score for African American students dropped. This year, the average score was 16.3, down from 16.7 in 2020 and 17.1 in 2017. The average score for Whites also dropped to 21.7 from 22.0 in 2020 and 22.4 in 2017.

Based on score results, the American College Testing organization calculates the percentage of students who took the ACT test who are adequately prepared to take on a college-level curriculum. In 2021, 28 percent of Black test takers were rated ready for college-level courses in English, compared to 67 percent of Whites. In mathematics, only 10 percent of Backs were rated college-ready compared to 44 percent of Whites. In science, ACT data shows 11 percent of Blacks were ready for college-level courses compared to 44 percent of Whites. In reading, 18 percent of Blacks achieved the minimal benchmark for college readiness compared to 53 percent of Whites. All of these scores for college readiness for both Blacks and Whites were down from 2020.

The most striking statistic is that only 6 percent of all Black test takers were rated ready for college-level courses in all four areas of English, mathematics, science, and reading. Whites were more than five times as likely as Blacks to be prepared for college-level work in all four areas.

Recent research reveals that the graduation rate at HBCUs continues to disappoint.

According to the Dec. 6, 2021 edition of The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that in October 2020, there were 2,591,000 African Americans enrolled in U.S. higher education. At that time there were 17,674,000 students of all racial and ethnic groups enrolled in higher education. Thus, African Americans made up 14.7 percent of all enrollments.

But breaking down the data by year of enrollment, the Journal found that there a high degree of attrition in African Americans enrollments. For example, African Americans in 2020 made up 17.5 percent of all first-year students at undergraduate colleges and universities. For students in their second year of undergraduate study, African Americans were 15. 3 percent of all enrollments. For those in their third year of undergraduate studies, African Americansn made up 15.0 percent of all enrollments. But by the fourth year of undergraduate study, African Americans were only 10.7 percent of all enrolled students.

In 2020, there were 711,000 African American first-year students. That same year, there were only 220,000 Black students in their fourth year of study.

At two-year colleges, African Americans were 16.9 percent of all entering students in 2020. But Blacks were just 15 percent of students who were enrolled in a second year of study.

So it seems clear that efforts to reduce the racial gap in college enrollments and degree attainments, must not only address initial access but must focus on retention efforts for African American students.

If wealthy philanthropists and HBCUs really want to help Black college students, they will put money and effort into ensuring that Black students get a K-12 education that prepares them for college and that HBCU students graduate with a good education. HBCUs that fail this test are doing their students no favors, undercutting the very people they claim to champion.

UPDATE: For a 2025  update to this post, see: