Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are a diverse group of 105 institutions. The enrollments vary from several hundred students to over 10,000 students. Prior to Brown v. Board of Education, 90 percent of African American postsecondary students were enrolled in HBCUs. The competition that HBCUs currently face in attracting and educating African American and other students presents both challenges and opportunities. Despite the fact that numerous studies have found that HBCUs are more effective at retaining and graduating African American students than predominantly white colleges, HBCUs have serious detractors. Perhaps because of the increasing pressures on state governments to ensure that public HBCUs receive comparable funding and provide programs that will attract a broader student population, several public HBCUs no longer serve primarily African American students.

Historically black colleges and universities represent the roots of black participation in American higher education. Early efforts to provide higher education for blacks began in the north. In 1837, a Quaker philanthropist founded the Institute for Colored Youth (now Cheyney University) as a teacher training facility in Pennsylvania. Wilberforce College was founded in Ohio in 1856. Lincoln University was founded in Pennsylvania in 1854 as the Ashmun Institute and renamed in honor of President Abraham Lincoln in 1866. In addition, some African Americans were permitted to attend white colleges in northern states in small numbers. The activities of missionary and benevolent societies at the outbreak of the Civil War led to the founding of black colleges in the south.

The American Missionary Association (AMA) alone was responsible for founding seven black colleges and 13 normal schools between 1861 and 1870. The federal agency known as the Freedmen's Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands also was instrumental in educating ex-slaves. Notably, Howard University, named for the commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau, was established on land owned by the bureau in Washington, D.C. During this early period, the term college was misleading. An examination of the curriculum reveals that the institutions were teaching elementary and secondary skill training and remediation to students who had little or no rudimentary education.