MYTH NO. 3 H BCUs are inferior.
No HBCU is on U.S. News & World Report’s list of top 100 national universities, and only one, Spelman, is ranked among its 100 best liberal arts colleges. HBCUs also have a relatively low graduation rate (30 percent) compared with all black college students nationwide (42 percent ), according to a 2015 New America report. MYTH NO. 4 Students are fleeing HBCUs. In a 2015 feature, Newsweek’s Alexander Nazaryan wrote that “colleges without students do as well as airlines without passengers, and as black students snub HBCUs, HBCUs face the first true existential crisis in their collective history.” That same year, Forbes ran an article enumerating enrollment declines at several HBCUs and concluding that African American students were “voting with their feet to go to schools they think fit their needs better.”
colleges without students do as well as airlines without passengers, and as black students snub HBCUs, HBCUs face the first true existential crisis in their collective history. -Alexander Nazaryan
Brought to you by: washingtonpost.com
MYTH NO. 5 Obama was anti-HBCU.
President Barack Obama’s first budget called for a $73 million cut in funding for HBCUs. (The next year, that money was restored .) In 2011, the administration tightened loan standards, resulting in a 36 percent reduction in federal PLUS loans available to HBCU parents and causing a number of students to unexpectedly interrupt their college educations. The new rules disproportionately affected schools that served a high share of disadvantaged students. A Post analysis found that the move translated to an annual cut of more than $150 million for HBCUs.
-Department of Education
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker