It’s expensive to be poor. And few places in higher education feel that more acutely than historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), where endowments are typically smaller and enrollments have fluctuated wildly over the past decade.
Now, to be clear, the financial misfortune of black colleges does not rest squarely on their shoulders. Born out of necessity primarily after the Civil War to educate black people who were shut out of most other colleges, the institutions have been plagued by unequal and inadequate funding ever since. HBCUs, half of which are public, draw a lion’s share of their revenue from state and federal funding. And as states tighten their belts on higher-education spending, these institutions are struggling to come up with the funds to improve their campuses by constructing new buildings or renovating ones that have started to wear down.
[Why black colleges are cultivating ties to Congress, not the White House.]
But there’s a way for colleges to circumvent their funding woes to pay for campus improvements: taking on debt. But even then, the legacy of racism in the treatment of black colleges is apparent.
[For more on this story by ADAM HARRIS, go to https://www.theatlantic.com/ed...loans-racism/568168/]
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