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Why are HBCUs underfunded?

Jun 22, 2023
While HBCUs provide bright futures for Black students, they aren’t as well funded as other prestige universities.
HBCUs are vital for educating Black professionals, but they remain underfunded.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Getty Images helps historically Black colleges digitize and archive their photographs

Aug 9, 2022
The partnership is meant to help preserve important historical records of Black Americans' lives.
Archivist Andre Vann of North Carolina Central University handles a 1964 photo of the homecoming queen and her attendants, to be included in the HBCU Getty Images collection.
Leoneda Inge

Historically Black school enrollment is rising, propelled by the Black Lives Matter movement

Jun 3, 2022
Many HBCUs were established in the years following the Civil War to educate Black people. Now, many are seeing an increase in applications.
Morgan State's freshman class nearly doubled last fall from the previous years. Above, students walk through the Baltimore campus in May.
Stephanie Hughes/Marketplace

Historically Black colleges and universities are chronically underfunded

Nov 18, 2021
HBCU advocates say funding shortfalls mean less scholarship money and financial aid for students and can lead to lower graduation rates.
From 1957 to 2007, Tennessee State University, an HBCU, received far less money than it was due by virtue of its federal land-grant designation.
Damon Mitchell/WPLN News

Historically Black colleges and universities face new financial hurdles

Jul 24, 2020
The pandemic has reduced HBCUs' enrollment, affecting tuition revenue. Even before this year, many struggled financially.
Pictured: Graduates of Bowie State University, an HBCU in Maryland, attended ceremonies with messages on their mortarboard hats in 2013.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Historically Black colleges get a $120 million gift. They need it.

Jun 18, 2020
The co-founder of Netflix and his wife hope their donations will help “reverse generations of inequality.”
A Morehouse College graduation ceremony. The HBCU is one of the recipients of a $120 million donation from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings.
Erik S. Lesser/Getty Images

Beyoncé left a "big pair of beautiful silvery boots" to fill at Coachella

Apr 16, 2018
The artist used her two-hour set at the highest-grossing music festival in the country to celebrate black culture.
“Beyoncé opened up a whole can of blackness to the world,” at Coachella, writer Danielle Young says.
Larry Busacca/Getty Images for Coachella

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Historically black colleges and universities add $15 billion a year to the economy, study shows

Nov 14, 2017
Fifteen billion dollars a year. That’s about how much historically black colleges and universities contribute to the U.S. economy each year, according to a new study released today by the United Negro College Fund and conducted by the University of Georgia. As Marketplace’s Reema Khrais reports, it’s part of a bigger strategy to highlight the relevance […]

Historically black colleges struggle to compete

Oct 10, 2013
A federal court in Maryland ruled this week that the state had failed fully to desegregate its public higher education system.