While college enrollment has declined overall in recent years, in part due to the coronavirus pandemic, some historically Black colleges and universities have seen an influx of applicants — a trend experts say is likely to continue in the wake of the recent Supreme Court ruling ending race-conscious admissions.
“HBCUs in particular have been creating opportunities for African Americans and other people of color for almost 200 years now,” says Tony Allen, president and chief executive officer of Delaware State University. “And we do believe that there is a unique opportunity for us to attract more students as a result of this decision.”
The effects of the June 2023 ruling won’t be felt until future admissions cycles. But Spelman College, a private women’s HBCU in Atlanta, for instance, received more than 11,000 applications for the 2021-2022 admissions cycle — a 20% increase from the year prior, and the highest number in the school’s history. Right next door, Morehouse College experienced an even larger increase in applications, 86%, between the academic years of 2019-2020 and 2021-2022.
Not all HBCUs have experienced this recent large jump in admissions. The number of HBCU students increased by 47% between 1976 and 2010, but declined 12% between 2010 and 2021, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
Many HBCUs have also recently captured the attention of wealthy donors. For example, philanthropist Mackenzie Scott, former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, donated more than $500 million to 23 HBCUs in 2020.
Here are two kinds of changes HBCUs could see in the post-affirmative action climate.
Potential Enrollment Increases
Many experts agree that minority enrollment will decline at predominately white institutions in the coming years.
A study of public universities in states that had affirmative action bans starting around the mid-1990s found that Black, Hispanic and Native American students were underrepresented at the flagship state universities before the ban. That gap in representation increased in the years after the ban.
Given the coming changes in admissions, some students of color will decide to apply to HBCUs rather than predominantly white institutions. Over the last four decades, the number of Black students enrolled at HBCUs has increased by 14%, according to NCES data.
“I do think that it could positively impact those institutions that way,” says Wil Del Pilar, senior vice president of The Education Trust, a nonprofit focused on improving equity in education. “But with that being said, we also have to realize that we have not adequately funded historically Black colleges, at the state or at the federal level. So the question is, ‘What capacity do these historically Black colleges have to take on larger enrollments in terms of students when we’ve starved them for resources for years?’ I would say that remains a question to be answered.”
[READ: How HBCUs Are Addressing the Cost of College.]
HBCUs are among America’s most diverse institutions, says Lezli Baskerville, president and CEO of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education, a membership association of HBCUs and predominantly Black colleges and universities.
And more students of color are understanding and gravitating toward that institutional orientation, particularly during times of heightened political division, she and others suggest.
“From their inception, HBCUs have been open and inclusive to all students who meet the academic criteria and who want to come, except in the case of where you have schools for females and schools for males,” Baskerville says.
Josiah Sampson III, former vice president of enrollment at Jackson State University in Mississippi, predicts predominately white institutions will reject more minority students.
“The Supreme Court’s decision on race-conscious admissions gives an unfortunate perception that an equal playing field, equal application of the rules, and equal expectation of coverage and protection by the law is still as easily expected as catching a shadow,” he wrote in an email. “This decision will ensure that many qualified Black and Brown students will not be admitted or accepted into many historically white institutions.”
Sampson adds: “Parents and students are choosing to go where they are celebrated, supported, nurtured, and accepted academically and socially.”
[Read: Consider Faculty Diversity When Applying to College.]
An early indicator of whether these predictions of increased enrollment hold true will be the number of spring 2024 transfer students, Del Pilar says.
“If those are up, then I think that it may be a sign of what we’re likely to see for the following fall with high school students,” he says.
Despite projected enrollment increases, Del Pilar speculates that HBCUs will wait to see what happens with applications before making any large investments.
HBCUs adjusted slightly to meet the prior jumps in enrollment, which some observers attribute to the rise in support for the Black Lives Matter movement after the police killings of George Floyd and other Black Americans, as well as the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black communities. That included introducing and developing online infrastructure. At the time, colleges and universities were receiving federal stimulus packages.
In 2020, the U.S. Department of Education provided a total of $1.6 billion in debt relief to 45 HBCUs, with an additional $5 billion given a year later through the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund programs.
The difference now, however, is HBCUs have to use their own funding to make those investments to accommodate more students, Del Pilar says, despite historical underfunding.
According to a 2023 Candid/Association of Black Foundation Executives report, the average HBCU received 178 times less funding from foundations than the average Ivy League school between 2015 and 2019. HBCUs received a combined $303 million compared to a combined $5.5 billion for Ivy League schools.
[READ: What to Know About the Common Black College Application.]
Additionally, HBCUs — only 11 of which are currently classified as R2 “high research activity” institutions — receive fewer grant dollars for research than Ivy Leagues. Many say that needs to change.
“We need to make sure as a sector, that we are prepared for that (growth) and making sure that when the students come here, they’re getting what I call the secret sauce of HBCUs: not just building exceptional quality students, but also exceptional citizens who can contribute to the world in a real way,” Allen says.
More Partnerships With Highly Selective Colleges
Beyond a potential increase in applications and enrollment, some experts also expect more HBCUs to partner with highly selective institutions.
For instance, Tougaloo College in Mississippi, an HBCU, and Brown University in Rhode Island, an Ivy League school, have had a long-standing partnership that includes high school, undergraduate, graduate and faculty programs. Students have the option to take classes or conduct research at each institution.
“You’ll end up with internships, research (opportunities) and fellowships where there are exchanges between faculty and students. And in non-research HBCUs, they will have a broader base of research institutions to attend during break and over the summer,” Baskerville says.
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What the End of Race-Conscious College Admissions Could Mean for HBCUs originally appeared on usnews.com
