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Are Historically Black Colleges Worth It?
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by Dwayne Ashley
Sep 20, 2007, 15:21 

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Are Historically Black Colleges Worth It?

Some scholars suggest that the "unique educational services" once
provided by HBCUs to Black students have now disappeared.

By Dwayne Ashley

Economists Drs. Roland Fryer of Harvard University and Michael
Greenstone of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently
undertook a dense statistical analysis, which concluded that attending
historically Black colleges and universities may once have conferred a
"wage advantage" for African-American graduates compared to those
graduating from majority White institutions - but no longer. 

But do the data actually support such a conclusion? Or the
Fryer-Greenstone suggestion that the "unique educational services" once
provided by HBCUs to Black students have now disappeared? Hardly. 

Higher education costs money, lots of it, as any family with
college-bound children can attest. But calculating the value of a
college education can be a tricky business and, when measured by a
single set of criteria, fundamentally misleading. 

First, the Fryer-Greenstone discovery of a "wage differential" over 20
years (1970s to 1990s) is a tenuous barometer of educational value for
money and not necessarily a measure of overall educational equality.
How, for example, would you evaluate income differences between a school
focused on the humanities and fine arts (endeavors usually associated
with lower earnings) with a school that has a large business and
technology program? One suspects that career goals, financial aid,
likelihood of acceptance and caliber of instruction will weigh much more
heavily on a student's decision to apply than a hypothetical paycheck 10
years after graduation.

In fact, as Fryer and Greenstone acknowledge, HBCUs registered
significant gains between the 1970s and 1990s in several areas
traditionally used to measure educational quality, including SAT scores
of incoming freshmen and per capita student spending.

Second, any wage difference between graduates of HBCUs and majority
institutions is statistically swamped by the ever-widening gap between
those who earn a college degree and those who don't. Simply put, large
numbers of HBCUs consistently graduate African-American students at
higher rates than do majority schools. This fact indicates that HBCUs'
retention rates, while roughly 33 percent, are higher than those of
majority institutions.
Would many of these HBCU students excel at majority colleges and
universities? Of course. But many others without the necessary family
backing, academic preparation or financial support to attend such
schools would not. 

Even today, a remarkable percentage of HBCU students are the first
members of their family to graduate from an institution of higher
learning. For such students, HBCUs are vital in meeting the education
needs of minority populations too often ignored or underserved by
majority public and private institutions of higher learning. I see this
reality every day as head of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, where
we have provided more than $60 million in merit-based scholarships to
minority students: 98 percent of whom graduate, and more than half of
whom continue on to graduate school or professional study.

Fryer and Greenstone speculate about the negative impact of U.S. v.
Fordice (1992), which required states to either integrate HBCUs or find
"educational justification" for their continuance. But HBCUs have
responded to this challenge by successfully integrating their student
bodies and faculties to reflect the nation's growing diversity, while
still remaining true to their core mission of providing affordable,
high-quality education to African-Americans.

There is another possible explanation for the relative wage decline, one
that Fryer and Greenstone acknowledge: The data could reflect
improvements in how majority institutions educated Black students, and
not a decline in HBCU standards. 

Looking at the data from this vantage point, the study could well be
titled, "African-Americans Demonstrate Education Gains at Majority White
Schools."

Such a conclusion doesn't even require particularly sophisticated
analysis. Following the civil rights movement of the 1960s, for example,
a relatively large number of African-American students entered the
nation's colleges and universities. The result was a period of turmoil
and adjustment for students and institutions alike, as well as the
lingering impact of persistent racism.

In retrospect, it is obvious that HBCUs, largely spared these wrenching
social adjustments, would have advantages that could be reflected in
relatively higher incomes after graduation. Twenty years later, however,
America was a very different place. Although issues of discrimination
and racial inequality persisted in the 1990s, it is clear that both
majority colleges and their Black students became better equipped to
succeed in the classroom and beyond. 

The Fryer-Greenstone study underscores the dynamism and complexity of
higher education in the United States, and HBCUs, like all colleges and
universities, must continue to innovate, improve and strive for academic
excellence. 

To honor their historic mission, HBCUs cannot look to history but to the
knowledge and skills required of today's students to be successful in
the classroom and in a global marketplace - and to the high calling of
educating African-Americans and students of all racial and social
backgrounds to take their rightful places as leaders of the next
generation of Americans. When they can do that, there is no question
that HBCUs are more than worth it.

- Dwayne Ashley is President and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College
Fund.


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One Response to "Are Historically Black Colleges Worth It?"


1.      Rev. Dr. E-K. Daufin <http://home.earthlink.net/~ekdaufin>
Says: 
        September 24th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
<http://diversepodium.com/?p=306#comment-6691#comment-6691>  

Yes, HBCU's are definitely "more than worth it." For many students
attending an HBCU that still has a predominantly African American
student body and/or faculty (That is NOT the case at several HBCU's.)
may be the first and last time they get to know what the normalcy
"privilege" is in attending college and/or being taught, counseled,
staffed by other African Americans. Though if they step a foot or
perhaps a block off campus that unearned privilege will not exist. I was
disturbed at a prestigeous summer seminar I attended earlier this year
that two African Americans with Ph.D.'s said in a whiny voice that Black
students at HBCU's need to "get over being Black." "Look at poor
me...I'm black," one said. Students at Hofstra are not asked to get over
being Jewish. Students at Catholic universities are not asked to get
over being Catholic. Instead in addition to learning the traditional
cannons of their heritage they may also get an opportunity to, in some
classes, delve deeper into the unique contributions of their heritage in
ways that are not possible at predominantly White, Anglo-Saxon or
Protestant institutions of higher learning. Should the state help
support HBCU's? Darn skippy...It "ain't" 40 acres and a mule plus 130
years interest but it's something.

 

 

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