The Best HBCU

There is no such thing as "the best HBCU, the second best HBCU, the third best HBCU, etc"; nor is there such a thing as "the best predominantly White institution (PWI) of higher learning, second best, third best, etc. " Annual "rankings" of colleges and universities are nothing more than mildly entertaining bits of gossip whose primary function is to promote the sales of the magazines in which they appear. They should never be taken seriously.

Unfortunately, when they are taken seriously, these so-called "rankings" can cause prospective students to make very bad career decisions because they distract attention from the real question: Which HBCU is best for YOU? This question has become even more critical in the context of the worst recession since the Great Depression.

Sensible answers must be based on reliable data. Although the available data about America's colleges and universities is not as good as it should be, the Web now provides free access to gigabytes of useful information from reliable sources that can enable prospective students (and/or their supporting families) to quickly narrow their options down to a small handful of feasible possibilities. Nobody should pay any attention to gimmicky "rankings."

A. Sources of Information about HBCUs
Nowadays the most important souces of information about HBCUs are:

1. The U.S. Department of Education's College Navigator
   This Website provides data about all of the accredited colleges and univerisities in the United States, e.g., tuition, estimated costs of books and other materials, male/female composition, racial composition, and six year graduation rates.


2. The Carnegie 2005 Classifications
   This Website enables users to identify colleges and universities that are similar to one another by a variety of measures.


3. HBCU Websites
   Each HBCU now has its own Website that provides background information about the history and the mission of the HBCU, descriptions of its current courses, programs, tuition & fees, and announcements about its most recent achievements and upcoming events.


4. Personal observation
   Once you've narrowed your options down to a few possibilities, there is no substitute for direct observation, i.e., visits to the campus for discussions with faculty, students, and administrators. You should also talk to some of their recent alumni.

Note: The reader is also encouraged to use the Gateway to HBCUs because the primary purpose of this Website is to inform its users about the academic activities of HBCUs, i.e., their teaching, research, and community service. More specifically, its Profiles and its Directories of HBCU Programs for Nontraditional Students and Distance Learning provide direct links to the other Webpages that carry the most relevant information about each HBCU.

B. Traditional vs. Nontraditonal Students
Traditional students attend classes on weekdays, usually between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. By contrast, nontraditional students can only attend classes on evenings, weekends, and via distance learning because of their jobs and/or family obligations. Traditional students tend to be younger (18 to 25), attend classes full-time, and only work only part-time. Nontraditional students are older and attend classes on a part-time basis. Traditional students are usually enrolled in degree programs; many nontraditional students are enrolled in job skills certificate training programs.

• Unfortunately, the vast majority of the courses and programs offered by the 104 HBCUs are still geared towards traditional students. For example, most HBCU classes are offered on weekdays.


• The latest edition of the Gateway's Directory of HBCU Programs For Nontraditonal Students (currently being updated) only lists 51 HBCUs that offer courses accessible to non-traditional students, and those programs only cover a narrow range of subject matter.


• The most selective private HBCUs, e.g., Spelman, Morehouse, and Howard, offer the least number of courses and programs for nontraditional students.


• Most of the nontraditional programs are offered by four year public institutions -- e.g, North Carolina A&T, Fayetteville State, and Tennessee State -- and by two year public institutions -- e.g., Trenholm State Technical College, J.F. Drake State Technical College, and Gadsden State Community College.


• The Department of Education's Navigator and the Carnegie Classification Websites (as well as the so-called annual magazine "ratings") don't provide much information about programs for nontraditional students; their data focuses on programs for traditional students.

To derive the most benefit from the major sources of information about HBCUs, you have to ask the right questions. Hopefully the following checklists will prove useful.
C. Checklist for Nontraditional Students
1. If you are a nontraditional student, are you seeking a degree?
If you are seeking an associates or a bachelors degree, the number of HBCU options is even smaller. The Gateway's Directory of HBCU Programs for Nontraditional Students only lists 5 HBCUs offering associates degrees for nontraditional students and 19 offering bachelors degrees.

2. If you are a nontraditional student, does the HBCU offer the degree programs or certificate programs in which you are interested?As noted above, most HBCU programs are still geared towards traditional students. This is one of the reasons why for-profit colleges like the Phoenix, Strayer, Kaplan, and DeVry have been so successful in enrolling African Americans in recent years. They offer far more programs that nontraditional African American students are looking for than do HBCUs.

3. If you are a nontraditional student seeking job skills certificate training, can you afford the HBCU program or do you need financial aid?

• Information about the costs of nontraditional certificate programs can be found on the HBCU Websites
  
• The largest and most reliable source of financial aid is the Federal government, especially during the current recession. Federal guidelines do permit the provision of financial aid to nontraditional students enrolled in certificate training programs but, unfortunately, some HBCUs have not organized their certificate programs to meet the Federal requirements. The availability of Federal aid should be indicated on the HBCU Website, but if the Website doesn't explicitly state this availability, you should contact the HBCU to be sure.

D. Checklist for Traditional Students
The remaining questions assume that you are a traditional student seeking an associates or bachelors degree.

1. Which HBCUs are accredited?Unfortunately, a few HBCUs have recently lost their accreditation and a few more may be in the danger zone. If an HBCU is not listed in the College Navigator, it is not accredited.

Loss of accreditation prevents current students from obtaining additional Federal aid, jeopardizes their chances for admission to graduate/professional schools, and diminishes their employment opportunities. You should also be mindful of reliable reports about scandals and lawsuits involving an HBCU's senior administrators. Most HBCUs are small enough that these kinds of distractions can seriously undermine their efficiency to the point where accreditation may be jeopardized in the future. (Note: Prior to the election of the Obama Administation, loss of accreditation automatically meant loss of official "HBCU status; but not anymore.)

2. Which HBCUs offer the degree programs you want and at what price (tuition, books, and fees)?The best sources for this information are the course catalogs posted on the HBCU Websites

3. If you are seeking a bachelors degree, of the HBCUs that offer the progams you want, which ones have the best six year graduation rates?

• The College Navigator provides this information based on data submitted by the HBCUs themselves. It measures the performance of a recent entering class, specifically, the percentage that graduated within six years after they first enrolled.
  
• On the one hand, there probably isn't much difference between an HBCU with a 69% six year graduation rate and one with a 60% six year rate. On the other hand, there is probably a world of difference in the educational experiences of students at HBCUs with a 100% or 79 % six year graduation rates and those with less than a 34% six year rates. Unfortunately, a discouraging number of HBCUs are graduating less one third of their students within six years. There is no escaping the fact that some HBCUs are doing a far better job than others.

4. If you are seeking an associates degree, of the HBCUs that offer the programs you want, which ones have the best overall two year graduation rates?

• Once again the College Navigator provides this information.
  
• Overall two year graduation rates are smaller than the six year rates for four year programs, but once again, these rates should not be taken literally. There probably isn't much difference between HBCUs having 10% overall rates versus HBCUs with 9% graduation rates. But there is probably a significant difference in the educational experiences of students at HBCUs with 32% rates and HBCUs with only 8% rates.

E. Checklist for All Students
Finally, there's the question that should be asked by all students, be they traditional or nontraditional:

• Why do you want to attend an HBCU?

In a world that is increasingly diversified through globalization, what benefits would you expect to gain by attending an educational institution that is more segregated than the rest of our society? The author of this editorial suggests two related reasons, which he fully discussed in a previous editorial, why African American students might still want to attend HBCUs. (See Why Are HBCUs Still Needed?)

• Attending HBCUs led by competent administrators and manned by qualified faculty exposes African American students to a broader range of career role models than they would find at most predominantly White colleges and universities.
  
• Possessing an extensive roster of career role models, HBCUs can also provide African American students with another important advantage: the academic freedom they need in order to work out their personal strategies for coping with the demeaning and distracting racism that still pervades American society.

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Related notes:

• The Best HBCUs in STEM

Why Are HBCUs Still Needed? -- Part I

A. Context

We are now 55 years from the Supreme Court’s 1954 desegregation decision and 45 years from the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965. As a result of these judicial/legislative landmarks that outlawed de jure segregation and undermined the persistence of de facto segregation, the vast majority of African American students no longer attend HBCUs. So it is fair to ask: why does America still need colleges and universities that continue to have enrollments that are mostly Black, even if this racial imbalance is maintained voluntarily?

The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) has provided a widely referenced answer to this question about the continued need for HBCUs on its Website (http://www.uncf.org/members/aboutHBCU.asp). An extensive excerpt appears below:

“While the 105 HBCUs represent just three percent of the nation’s institutions of higher learning, they graduate nearly 20 percent of African Americans who earn undergraduate degrees. … HBCU's are experts at educating African Americans:

• HBCUs graduate over 50 percent African American professionals.
• HBCUs graduate over 50 percent of African American public school teachers and 70 percent of African American dentists.
• 50 percent of African Americans who graduate from HBCUs go on to graduate or professional schools.
• HBCUs award more than one in three of the degrees held by African Americans in natural sciences.
• HBCUs award one-third of the degrees held by African Americans in mathematics.
• According to a 2004 McKinsey study, the average graduation rate at many HBCUs is higher than the average graduation rate for African Americans at majority institutions.“

B. A Minimal Standard

The UNCF has been the most successful fund-raiser for African Americans in higher education. Its impressive credentials range from the creation of the highly successful slogan – “A mind is a terrible thing to waste” – to becoming the principal administrator of the Gates Foundation’s billion dollar contribution to minority higher education (http://www.gmsp.org/default.aspx). Given that HBCUs range from two year community colleges to full-scale universities replete with professional degree programs in engineering, medicine, and the law, and Ph.D. programs in the sciences and humanities, the UNCF has implicitly defined a minimal standard that should be attained by all HBCUs. To be specific:

• HBCUs should demonstrate significantly greater competence in the education of African American students than majority institutions of higher learning.

Unfortunately, the data in U.S. Department of Education’s College Navigator online database (http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator) suggests that many HBCUs do not meet this minimal standard. In May 2009 at least 36 HBCUs out of the 88 HBCUs having four year undergraduate programs graduated less than one-third of their students in six years. As for the McKinsey study, its finding would be compelling if it stated that the overall average graduation rate for Black students at ALL HBCUs was significantly higher than the overall average graduation rate for Black students at ALL non-HBCUs; but it doesn’t say this. In effect it merely recognizes that Spelman’s 81 percent and Howard’s 69 percent six year graduation rates for non-Hispanic Black students are higher than the six year rates at many non-HBCUs.

Much of the UNCF's data is historic, i.e., an accurate reflection of conditions in the long transition between the pre-Civil Rights era, when the vast majority of African American students continued to be educated at HBCUs at both undergraduate and graduate levels, and today. But moving forward, as more and more African American students enroll in majority colleges and universities, it is highly doubtful if these historic trends will persist. Indeed, in a report that I posted on the Gateway a few years ago, I noted that many for-profit colleges and universities were now producing so many Black graduates at the undergraduate and graduate levels as to cast them in a role hitherto played exclusively by HBCUs. (http://www.dll.org/WorkingPapers/Reports/StrategicPartnerships_Apr2006/default.asp)

In the last five years two HBCUs lost their accreditation (Barber-Scotia College and Morris Brown University).

But this is only the tip of the iceberg. As the editor/manager of the Gateway to HBCUs” Website, I have closely monitored HBCU activities for almost fifteen years. For the most part I have refrained from publishing links to the many articles in the higher education media and on the HBCU Websites themselves that reported the continuing administrative turmoil that has engulfed many HBCUs during this period. (Note: I only published a few links to these negative reports on the Gateway because I wanted the Gateway to emphasize the positive academic achievements of HBCUs.)

These persistent management problems suggest that there aren’t enough competent Black administrators to manage all of the nation’s 104 HBCUs. Prior to the Civil Rights Revolution, HBCUs had a monopoly on the best Black talent. Where else could they work? However, it is a bitter irony that in today’s more complex, IT-intensive society, HBCUs require administrators with more talent than in pre-Civil Rights days, but there may be fewer qualified Black administrators available to HBCUs. Given the sorry fact that most HBCUs are chronically underfunded, why should a talented Black administrator work for an HBCU when he or she could receive higher pay, deploy better resources, and help educate a larger number of Black students by working at a non-HBCU? I anticipate that the unprecedented depth of the current recession will cause many HBCUs to close their doors within the next five to ten years; nor is this necessarily a bad thing. The nation does not need HBCUs that cannot meet minimal standards.

C. Role Models and Academic Freedom

The discouraging six year graduation rates of over forty percent of the HBCUs should dispel any notions that HBCUs are inherently better qualified to teach African American students than predominantly White colleges and universities. Leadership skills and subject matter expertise are far more important than the skin color of a college’s administrators and faculty.

But why should an HBCU that has competent administrators and qualified faculty provide a better education for African American students than a non-HBCU having equally competent administrators and equally qualified faculty? Why should skin color make a difference? Should short students go to “historically short colleges and universities”? Should left-handed students go to “historically left-handed colleges and universities”? 

If HBCUs only taught “Black” subjects like Black Music, Black Poetry or Black Dance, the advantages of having a predominantly Black faculty would be self-evident. But they don’t. Therefore their schools of engineering, medicine, and law don’t teach “Black Engineering”, “Black Medicine”, or “Black Law”, nor do their departments of economics, physics, mathematics, and chemistry teach “Black Economics”, “Black Physics”, “Black Mathematics”, or “Black Chemistry”. So why should a Black student gain any educational advantage in today’s post-Civil Rights Era by studying these subjects in a predominantly Black environment? Here are my answers:

• Attending HBCUs led by competent administrators and manned by qualified faculty exposes African American students to a broader range of career role models than they would find at most predominantly White colleges and universities.
  
  It’s one thing to read about Black chemists, Black physicists, or Black mathematicians in high school classes during Black History Month; it’s quite another to sit in their classes. It’s one thing to read about high level Black managers; it’s quite another to see them up close, making important decisions. The legal restrictions of slavery and segregation may have been abolished, but the capacities of many African American students to take maximum advantage of the opportunities available to them in today’s society are often impeded by self-imposed limits. Few of us are pioneers … or want to be. Most people need to see that others have already gone down lesser-known paths to be sure that passage down such paths is even possible. In other words, many African American students still need African American role models and mentors to inspire them to realize their fullest potential, and the more role models the better.
  
• Possessing an extensive roster of career role models, HBCUs can also provide African American students with another important advantage: the academic freedom they need in order to work out their personal strategies for coping with the demeaning and distracting racism that still pervades American society.
  
  Contrary to the national media, no one speaks for all Black people. There are no "Black Popes". This is commonly accepted at HBCUs, so their students do not engage in mutually destructive "Blacker-than-thou" games. Nor do HBCU professors indulge their students' misperceptions, something that happens all too frequently on predominantly White campuses where liberal professors are guilted into subverting academic standards they had sworn allegiance to all of their adult lives.
  
  Rather than pay their Black students the ultimate courtesy of honest disagreement, they stand mute in the face of the most inane gibberish -- “Gee, I always thought that two plus two was four … but maybe it’s five for Black People“. The existence of a broader range of African American role models among an HBCU’s faculty, staff, and senior administrators exposes African American students to a broader range of coping strategies from which to choose. At HBCUs, African American students -- as well as African American faculty, staff, and senior administrators -- are free to be any shade of Black they want to be. ... :-)

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Related notes:

• Why are HBCUs still needed? -- Part II
• From HBCUs to BCUs
• Why are HBCUs Still Needed? -- Part III
• Why are HBCUs Still Needed? -- Part IV