Issue Primers

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) were first established by the second Land-Grant Act of 1890. Primarily concentrated in the Southeast U.S., HBCUs comprise 1.4% of all postsecondary enrollment but enroll 9% of all Black students in higher education. More than half of HBCU students receive Pell Grants and borrow federal student loans. Black students graduate from HBCUs at a similar rate as all other institutions, though HBCU Black graduates tend to fare better in the workforce than Black graduates from other institutions. HBCUs play an important role in serving student populations that have historically been disenfranchised from the U.S. higher education system.

HBCUs are institutions of higher learning established prior to 1964 with the education of Black Americans as their primary mission. Many were founded and developed in an environment of post-slavery segregation when most postsecondary institutions were not open to people of color.

In 1862, the U.S. Congress passed the Morrill Land-Grant Act, giving federal land to states for the purpose of opening colleges and universities to educate farmers, scientists, and teachers. Of the institutions created under this significant federal investment, only one, Alcorn State University in Mississippi, was open to Black people and thus designated as a Black land-grant college. It wasn’t until 1890, with the passage of the second Land-Grant Act, that states were required to open their land-grant institutions to Black students or allocate monies to Black institutions that could serve as alternatives to their white counterparts. This led to the creation of 16 exclusively Black institutions, most of them public schools. Throughout the years that followed, the Freedmen’s Bureau, Black churches, and the American Missionary Association founded many of the additional institutions that would later become HBCUs.

Over time, enrollment at HBCUs increased, as did financial support from the government and private foundations. Increasing financial support and recognition that the federal government has an obligation to support HBCUs culminated in the Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965, which established mandatory and competitive funding for HBCU maintenance and development. Though the HEA provided much-needed capital, HBCUs continue to be underfunded relative to their financial need and other land-grant institutions.