Author: Dr. Lezli Baskerville

Endowments at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) pale in comparison to those at America’s wealthiest colleges and universities, with total funding in any respect HBCUs accounting for lower than one-tenth of Harvard.

That’s why when someone like Ronda Stryker, granddaughter of the billionaire founding father of medical device maker Stryker Corp., and her husband William Johnston, donate $100 million to Spelman Collegebecomes a message worthy of a push notification.

The money — which might be used to fund scholarships, advance academic interest in public policy and democracy, and improve student housing, amongst other things — continues a trend of accelerating giving to HBCUs since racial justice protests sparked by the 2020 killing of George Floyd. However, despite the reversal of fortunes at some HBCUs, the whole amount of donations to these schools still pales in comparison to other leading institutions of upper education – with HBCUs receive 178 times less funding in foundations than the common Ivy League school in 2019 alone.

While observers attribute a wide range of reasons for this glaring disparity—starting from the residual effects of racism, limited connections between philanthropists and HBCU leaders, and underfunded marketing budgets—the very fact stays that HBCUs are the important thing to excellence and social and economic mobility in Black America.

HBCUs have at all times punched above their weight because though they make up just 3 percent of U.S. colleges and universities, they graduate 42 percent of Blacks with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and math, and 44 percent of Blacks with a bachelor’s degree in communications technology, 50 percent of Blacks lawyers, 50 percent black doctors, 40 percent black members of Congress and our country’s first female, black and Asian vice chairman President.

But the modest funding progress HBCUs have remodeled the past few years is predicted to be put to the test in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling aimed toward effectively ending Affirmative Action amid a flood of applicants to the colleges.

Despite their enormous value to America and the world, a long time of personal sector underfunding and public underinvestment in HBCUs have left lots of these institutions with narrow operating margins.

With HBCUs underfunded by roughly $12.8 billion and the number of latest applicants expected to increase following the Supreme Court ruling, closing the funding gap is more essential than ever. Thriving HBCUs are essential to closing the gaps in education, employment, the economy, wealth, health, sustainability, peace and justice in America, and for a thriving economy. So it’s heartening to see among the richest people in America taking on this position.

Financier and philanthropist Robert F. Smith made headlines in May 2019 when he announced that he and his family would repay the scholar loan debt of the Morehouse College graduating class of 2019 of 396 students. Smith also helped launch a nonprofit organization Student Freedom Initiative to address the disproportionate loan burden on Black students and create more alternative for those whose profession options or further educational opportunities could also be limited by high student debt. In 2022, SFI also announced a partnership with Prudential Financial to provide $1.8 million in micro-grants to HBCU students.

Along with Smith, MacKenzie Scott, a philanthropist, writer and ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, began investing $20 million to $50 million in HBCUs in 2020; Netflix founder Reed Hastings and his wife Patty Quillin donated $120 million to the United Negro College Fund, Spelman and Morehouse College; and former New York mayor and entrepreneur Michael Bloomberg committed $100 million to student aid at 4 historically black medical schools.

Despite multi-million dollar commitments and billions in investments, HBCUs remain chronically underfunded, and that’s the reason we cannot take our feet off the pedals, but as a substitute must proceed to raise awareness of the necessity to invest in HBCUs, America’s quintessential equal educational opportunity institutions, and the universities and universities that the post-Harvard and UNC anti-diversity Supreme Court era are best positioned to advance excellence, diversity, inclusion, peace and justice in America while closing the underclass, opening up the center class, and making a Black wealth class across the country.

THE PHOTO IS HERE

Doctor Lezli Baskerville is president/CEO of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education.