Source: ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / Getty
Enrollment rates of Black students at HBCUs have risen in response to the Supreme Court’s decision on race-based college admissions.
According to reports, the new college season is seeing a sharp rise in enrollment numbers at historically Black colleges and universities. At the same time, the rates of enrollment of Black students at private white institutions have been dropping. Those include Tufts University, the University of Virginia, Amherst College, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). This early data reflects the impact of the decision by the Supreme Court last year to limit race-based admissions at colleges. To date, 50 institutions have reduced or eliminated their race-conscious scholarships, totaling $45 million.
The rate of HBCU enrollment has gone up specifically by 4%, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Hampton University, along with Bethune-Cookman University, North Carolina A&T State University, Edward Waters University, Florida A&M University, Wilberforce University, and Howard University, have reported increased incoming freshman class sizes.
“I think that many students recognize that this ruling impacted them personally,” Angela Nixon Boyd, Hampton University assistant vice president of enrollment and dean of admission, said in an interview. “And so they, again, want to be in an environment where they feel welcomed, feel safe, and that they feel that they will have an opportunity for success.”
The decision allowed for diversity essays to remain in place but overturned the precedent set by the Regents of the University of California vs. Bakke in 1978. The cases were brought by a group representing an anonymous group of Asian-American students – notably, the enrollment rates for that group dropped at Yale and Princeton this year by 6% and 2%, respectively.
While the SCOTUS decision has a significant impact, officials at the HBCUs do note that “new retention and recruitment efforts and academic support for incoming students” in combination with $16 billion that has already been awarded to the schools by the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. But the new surge also comes with its challenges, as the American Institute for Boys and Men (AIBM) notes that Black male enrollment at HBCUs is almost at a 50-year low. “The share of non-Black students at HBCUs is now about equal to the share of Black male students, at 26% and 25% respectively,” their report continued, citing a lack of Black male teachers and financial support.
