Hair on Fire: For HBCUs Not Business as Usual
Over the past few days, I’ve been in constant conversations about the so-called “big beautiful bill”—and the deeply destructive changes it proposes to higher education. The planned changes such as taxing scholarship dollars, lowering Pell dollars while increasing required student credit hours, eliminating the Income-Driven Repayment (IDR) plan, loan default risk sharing, and a plethora of other items are deeply troubling. Add to those, attacks on research funding, foreign student admissions, and other auxiliary (for lack of a better word) issues.
But what is somewhat disturbing is that many higher education advocates have a blind spot when it comes to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). Please note, HBCUs are a distinctive category, separate from the Primarily Black Institutions, which I suspect causes a level of confusion when discussing mission and funding.
Personally, I have fallen into the “hair on fire” camp. I believe there is a great risk of policy implementation that will target HBCUs as a class for harm, while others (non-Black) are more sanguine, with a solid belief that because some other (more desirable? more powerful?) entities would also be harmed if that policy were enacted, then HBCUs will also benefit.
Example: the Pell Grant reduction.
The belief is that the current administration supports for-profit colleges (i.e., Trump University), and for-profit colleges often prey on lower-income people. Pell Grants are these schools’ primary source of funding. So, because of this, the current administration and thus Congress would not support the reduction of Pell Grants.
Again, hair-on-fire me responded with two counters:
There is a long history within white supremacy of eliminating public goods simply to prevent non-whites access (Drained Pool Politics, and Why Doesn’t the U.S. Have Universal Health Care?), and
I could see a carveout whereby for-profit and trade schools receive an exemption, and other schools (not just HBCUs but all others) are held to the new standard. I know carveouts are not necessarily standard, but we are dealing in non-standard times, and carveouts for for profits colleges were enacted during the Bush administration as well as Trump 1.0
What I am seeing by many non-Black people in this Trump 2.0 is an utter lack of imagination about how dangerous this situation really is. It’s like living in a cloud of “it’s going to be okay” or “that won’t happen.” For most Black people, it will not be okay, as the infrastructure or systems that created this (race-based) inequality must be addressed. Racially based externalities must be acknowledged and considered when discussing strategies and solutions.
Let’s Talk About the Core Mission of HBCUs as a Category
Well into the 20th century, most U.S. colleges either explicitly barred Black students or maintained admissions policies that effectively excluded them. In response, HBCUs were established to provide higher education for Black Americans who were otherwise denied access due to segregation and systemic racism.
Many HBCUs were founded by Black churches, missionary groups, and northern philanthropists, and they often emphasized teacher training, agriculture, and religious education, preparing Black Americans for leadership in their own communities at a time when most opportunities were systematically denied.
The mission of HBCUs goes beyond education. It includes:
• Social mobility for the Black community
• Civic leadership and racial uplift
• Creating safe intellectual spaces for Black scholars and students
• Community-centered problem solving, often addressing healthcare, education, and economic development in underserved Black communities
HBCUs were founded with Black people at the center—not as an inclusion effort, but as a foundation for survival. And it feels as though that survival is under attack.
Now Let’s Talk About Why My Hair Is on Fire
Affirmative Action / Race-Neutral Admissions
As we know, racism is an institution, and the structures that comprise the U.S. are built to reinforce and reproduce it. See above why HBCUs were founded.
Through affirmative action, Black students had access to all institutions (full disclosure: I went to a non-HBCU for undergrad), with a guarantee by law to be evaluated and considered fairly—not automatically eliminated by race (or gender).
The elimination—and now criminalization—of affirmative action practices, as codified in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023), effectively turns back the clock. It allows previous structures that precluded Black students from accessing these “white” institutions to re-emerge, re-segregate, and reinforce inequalities.
Pell Grant Funding / IDR / Scholarship Taxation
HBCUs have been underfunded for years. In my current state of Tennessee, funds that were allocated and to be disbursed to a local HBCU were instead sent to the public white flagship university. Upon discovering the $2 billion mistake, the state offered a single $250 million payment with a litany of strings attached to even access and nary an apology.
Because federal and state funding amounts have been inconsistent, HBCUs rely upon tuition and fees to pay for operating costs. And because it is within the mission of HBCUs to uplift the race, there is a high percentage of first-generation and low-income incoming students who qualify and require Pell Grant assistance.
Cutting Pell Grant access will preclude a substantial population of these Black, first-generation students from attending a four-year college—or force them into an open enrollment community college or trade school—as the opportunities for African Americans at non-HBCUs are now diminished based again on the criminalization of race-conscious admissions.
But there are other concerns.
By eliminating the income-dependent repayment plan, it simply does not make economic sense for a student with a heavy debt load to pursue being a teacher, or to pursue being a social worker, or to pursue any role in society that does not pay well.
Studies have shown that African American K–12 students perform better when they have at least one African American teacher (especially male teachers with young boys), but choosing teaching as a profession will no longer make sense having to pay loan amounts of $500 or $600 a month on a starting teacher’s salary of $40,000—and that does not even take into account a master’s program.
This change in debt repayment could cause society to funnel Black people into lower-wage, hourly work—cutting off college access to most. Or at best, perhaps funneling Black students into the community college, where outcomes and success for African American students is less than those of their white counterparts. (See: Black Students Community College), resulting in substantial debt loads and no degree.
Anti-DEI in Private Industry
Another attack: DEI rhetoric and the narrative that any person of color hired was only hired because of race and, subsequently, is obviously not qualified for the job.
This administration has also gone so far as to pressure private industry to eliminate inclusion (non-discriminatory!) practices. So as the national narrative surrounding college remains: go to college to get a white-collar, high-income job, but companies are being penalized, scrutinized, and targeted if they hire or recruit Black people for those roles. Then why would any Black person wish to go to college?
As Trump said during his most recent campaign, “the immigrants working the fields, doing construction, and working in restaurants are taking (your) Black jobs.” And this administration is setting the table to make this a reality, to send Black people “back” to a specific hourly wage–type role.
The most recent White House Initiative to Promote Excellence and Innovation at Historically Black Colleges and Universities is a performative gesture with no enforceable equity commitments. It is not a positive development. It revokes Executive Order 14041 (September 2021), which was focused on advancing educational equity and economic opportunity through HBCUs. No matter all the other “words” and urgings, in this most current HBCU initiative the key provision for equity for HBCUs was revoked.
So What Is Next?
We need the HBCUs to come together to strategize for their—and our—survival plan for the next 60 years.
There is a quote that says, “(Enterprise) Budgets show the values of an organization,” which actually set me off. Poor people budget from sacrifice or lack of resources—not from values. I take that as an affront.
HBCUs, which have been denied proper resources (resources that were owed), had resources stolen, and are now trying to find ways to make payroll and keep hot water in the dorms—because although maintenance was budgeted, student financial needs came first. Leadership had to rob Peter to pay Paul. Unfortunately that is a scenario experienced by many African American institutions.
The mission of HBCUs inherently is the value—and represents the values of the organization. They were established out of necessity due to segregation, racism, and discrimination. And to be clear: racism is alive and well, thus their necessity is not abated.
But we have an administration that is attacking the entire higher education arena—in a quest to attack free and critical thinking as well as the truth—and we, supporters of HBCUs, need to use this period to reshape, reform, and regroup to ensure we can continue to support and pursue Black excellence, regardless of who is in office.
