Why HBCUs Are On The Decline

October 3, 2006 by Marc Lamont Hill

According to recent reports, enrollment at the Historically Black Colleges and University (HBCU) is a on a steady decline. Despite a rise in overall attendance, the number of college eligible Black students who attend HBCUs has dropped from 18.4 percent to 12.9 percent over the past thirty years. Between 1995 and 2004, 26 of the 87 Black schools profiled by the United States Education Department experienced declines in enrollment. While many experts correctly attribute this drop in enrollment to “aging campuses,” there are a host of other critical issues that must be considered when discussing the current state of HBCUs.

One of the biggest issues surrounding the HBCU attendance drop is expanding opportunity. Beginning with the 1960s cohort of Affirmative Action students, large numbers of Black students were able to bypass the HBCU and matriculate directly into the White mainstream. Whereas scholars like Cornel West and Henry Louis Gates were able to enroll as undergraduates at Harvard and Yale University, their intellectual heroes and mentors had no such luxury. W.E.B. Dubois had to attend Fisk before obtaining a Ph.D. at Harvard; Martin Luther King, Jr. followed in his father’s Morehouse footsteps before going to Boston College; Martin Kilson went to Lincoln University before receiving his doctorate at Harvard. More than ever before, Black America’s best and brightest do not have to attend HBCUs as undergraduates before obtaining advanced degrees from elite, predominately White institutions.

In addition to expanding scholastic opportunities, HBCUs do not play the same role in Black public life as they did in previous decades. Although the highly commodified Black cultural nationalism of the early 1990s, as well as the hit television show “A Different World,” created a mini-renascence of HBCU love, there has been a growing indifference to HBCUs within the Black community. Whereas previous generations saw an HBCU degree as a badge of honor and community solidarity, many of today’s students and parents see the Black college as a secondary or tertiary alternative to Ivy League universities and elite liberal arts colleges. While this is partly due to the ever-expanding bourgeoisie sensibilities of the Black middle class, it is also directly connected to the increased corporatization of higher education. Within the cultural logic of the neo-liberal marketplace, where formal education is reduced to a tradable commodity, HBCUs are viewed as inferior products.

Another factor in the decline of the HBCU is its strict cultural conservatism. Unlike their historically White counterparts, many Black institutions continue to impose conservative policies and practices that, in the minds of many students, have exhausted their utility such as mandatory chapel service. Additionally, many HBCUs tacitly reaffirm problematic ideologies that cause material damage to its students. One of the most disturbing examples of this emerged in 2003, when Morehouse College’s unofficial “don’t ask don’t tell” policy about sexual identity, fueled by years of Christian fundamentalism and homphobia, contributed to the vicious beating of Gregory Love, a gay student who was attacked for allegedly looking at another student in the bathroom.

Perhaps the most disappointing factor is that many HBCUs have failed to remain on the cutting edge of intellectual production. In the early part of the 20th century, schools like Howard University housed brilliant minds such as Abram Harris Jr., E. Franklin Frazier, and Ralph Bunche. This is not to say that HBCUs do not produce and provide brilliant intellectual leadership. On the contrary, prominent intellectuals from William Jelani Cobb to Wade Boykin to Beverly Guy-Sheftall operate from inside the Ebony tower. Still, the current structure of the university prioritizes teaching and university service over original research. As such, most of the country’s leading scholars elect to work at prominent research institutions, where they can teach two classes and produce new scholarship, instead of teaching four classes per semester at the HBCU.

Also, the conservative ethos of the HBCU has led to an ironic resistance to many of the most interesting, provocative, and transformative intellectual fields that have emerged in the past four decades. For example, many HBCUs still do not have African American Studies(!), Women’s Studies, or Queer Studies departments. The absence of such intellectually vibrant spaces inevitably forces many scholars, whose training was largely informed by these disciplines, to remain in White institutions.

To be certain, the declining significance of the HBCU is a tragedy for the Black community. In addition to being a historical signpost of highbrow Black intellection, the HBCU must play a vital role in creating a self-sustaining Black community in the future. In order to do this, however, we must acknowledge these issues and work to change them.

Categories: MLH
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23 Comments

1. ting wrote:

Dr. Hill, why did you choose not to go to an HBCU?

October 3, 2006 @ 12:16 pm

2. Marc Lamont Hill wrote:

I did choose to go to an HBCU. I attended Morehouse College. After my sophomore year, however, I had to transfer due to personal problems.

October 3, 2006 @ 12:18 pm

3. Marc Lamont Hill wrote:

Am I the only one who’s not gonna pretend that some funny and ironic shit didn’t just happen in a previous post?

October 3, 2006 @ 3:11 pm

4. ting wrote:

Marc, I think you need to be respectful of all Black American and how they may receive an education or un education. Their need not be all these discrepencies about who they choose to interact with whether or not they hang out with white people or not. In the 80th AND the 90’s, I have seen a decline in some of the students who come out of HBCU’s, but that could just be me. That’s all. period.

October 3, 2006 @ 3:45 pm

5. Hal wrote:

Dr. Hill…I wasn’t even going to go there! Freakin’ hilarious!! I know where I WON’T be recommending my children to go…

October 3, 2006 @ 3:48 pm

6. Hal wrote:

TING!!!!! LMMFAO!!!!

October 3, 2006 @ 3:50 pm

7. RWS wrote:

Just wrong. Just plain wrong.

October 3, 2006 @ 4:49 pm

8. omodiende wrote:

HBCU’s still maintain their original purpose – the creation of polite and useful (to whites) Black professionals. Not thinkers, not revolutionaries, not problem solvers. Just pleasant hired help to perpetuate the status quo.

October 3, 2006 @ 8:41 pm

9. ting wrote:

Well, after investigating many HBCU’s that I considered teaching at, I noticed many of them have rudimentary art programs, if ANY. (no art history, art education, even studio art). But I guess some things are more important than art…perhaps bookkeeping…

October 4, 2006 @ 1:41 am

10. ting wrote:

San, GO TO SLEEP!

Samuel, why did you transfer from FAMU to FSU?

Perhaps those people at USC, UCLA, and CAL are already comfortable in their own skin.

How about I send you a lump of coal for your birthday. Something to put in your rainboots!

October 4, 2006 @ 1:53 am

11. Samuel Beatrice wrote:

How you know what Big Vic’s bathroom looks like? You been over there lately?!!?!?!

October 4, 2006 @ 2:05 pm

12. omodiende wrote:

i applied for the ugly bathroom thing – and di not even get honorable mention.

October 4, 2006 @ 3:11 pm

13. ting wrote:

If I have accomplished one thing today, then my existence is that much more fruitful. Changing bathrooms, one toilet hugging rug at a time.

October 4, 2006 @ 6:54 pm

14. LMR wrote:

receive not recieve. I should start proofreading my own comments more often.

October 7, 2006 @ 10:24 pm

15. Five wrote:

How ironic..Hampton University is holding a discussion on this tonight. I’m currently and undergraduate at Hampton University, and felt the need to do a little research before going into the discussion. As many of us know-none of these points will be brought up in the discussion, so I feel someone has to take the responsibility to put these sort of ideas on the table. Good looking out-much appreciated. peace

December 7, 2006 @ 6:56 pm

16. Five wrote:

How ironic..Hampton University is holding a discussion on this tonight. I’m currently an undergraduate at Hampton University, and felt the need to do a little research before going into the discussion. As many of us know-none of these points will be brought up in the discussion, so I feel someone has to take the responsibility to put these sort of ideas on the table. Good looking out-much appreciated. peace

December 7, 2006 @ 6:57 pm

17. Five wrote:

Sorry for the double post by the way. peace

December 7, 2006 @ 6:58 pm

18. Minister Jim Fripp wrote:

Dear Mr. Hill,
Martin Luther King, Jr. attended Boston University School of Thelology, Methodist founded university. He did not attend Boston College, a Roman Catholic founded university.
Peace,
Minister Jim Fripp

January 10, 2011 @ 2:52 pm

19. Tuskegee_Gentleman wrote:

I am currently a Tuskegee freshman and in my opinion HBCUs are where African-Americans need to attend. Don’t get me wrong, we can venture out and attend PWIs, but when you attend an HBCU you gain valuable knowledge about your culture, surroundings, history…You also receive a GREAT education from teachers who car and not to mention the spiritual transformation you go through !! However, I do feel that some schools use the term HBCU as crutch !! Just because we are African Americans on a predominately black campus, does NOT mean you serve me terrible food, place me in bad dorms, keep run down buildings, let the administration become lazy, let financial aid/scholarships slip through the crack…I am sorry. I am a black man receiving an education to better myself in the future and it is small thing such as so that turn youth from attending HBCUs, thats being honest..when I first came to Tuskegee….i HATED it because kids were not there to focus on their future AND the appearance/presentation of the school was NOT acceptable, but the education kept me !!! And I am STAYING here as long as other kids and parents look past the appearance and just focus on the education and potential HBCUs build.

February 4, 2011 @ 5:48 pm

20. Tuskegee_Gentleman wrote:

*care

February 4, 2011 @ 5:49 pm

21. Maryland HBCUs Sue State For Racial Discrimination | News One wrote:

[...] The benefits of attending an HBCU depend on one’s field of interest. Studies show black students do better in math and technology when they attend African-American establishments, and that HBCUs graduate a significant percentage of our nation’s black scientists – and political leaders. At a time when we need to see more of our youth move into the sciences, and leadership in our community is in crisis, these points are vital to consider. But for the general job market, the economic benefit of attending an HBCU is non-existent. Attending a predominantly white school helps blacks earn 20% more than those graduating from HBCUs. This fact could account for the steady decline in HBCU attendance. [...]

May 16, 2011 @ 1:38 pm

22. Maryland HBCUs Sue State For Racial Discrimination | WCHBNewsDetroit - WCHB 1200 wrote:

May 16, 2011 @ 6:17 pm

23. HamptonWoman wrote:

wow! i completely agree with Tuskeee_Gengleman’s post. Hampton university is exactly like you stated. I honestly felt i was the only one unimpressed with the overall atmosphere of the HBCU experience.

October 15, 2011 @ 3:46 pm

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