Black Colleges Continues to Promote and Progress Young Black Students

low angle close-up of a young man carrying a backpack and smilingHistorically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) were initially developed in the 1800s as land-grant colleges to afford underrepresented African Americans their rights to inexpensive, yet high-quality, education, in the face of a prejudicial old guard that has dominated the American high education system.

Since then, HBCUs transformed into a crucial incubation chamber for STEM professionals within the African American community: according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, HBCUs graduate 50 percent more students in the STEM fields for every 1000 enrolled students than for-profit and predominantly white institutions do combined.

All told, HBCUs are responsible for the development of nearly one-third of all black scientists and engineers in America, and the numbers are even starker for black females attending college. While HBCUs account for only 17 percent of all enrolled African American females, those institutions produce a whopping 31 percent of all black, female STEM graduates nationwide.

So although HBCUs account for under 20 percent of African American college enrollment, but produce well over a quarter of all black STEM graduates. In a time when the viability of the HBCU system has come into question by critics, hard data underscores the importance of these oft forgotten institutes of higher education. New research shows that while many African Americans branch out beyond HBCUs when seeking out higher education, historically black colleges offer consistent opportunities for under-served and disadvantaged populations, like women and first-generation college students, to earn their degree in a STEM field.

In September, the American Institutes for Research (AIR) released a report entitled, “The Role of Historically Black Colleges and Universities as Pathway Providers: Institutional Pathways to the STEM PhD Among Black Students,” which found that HBCUs have “a unique advantage” to support the nationwide development of STEM programs that increase participation rates from African Americans in both the academic and professional environments.

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