From the News You Can Use Archives 04/24/07

Black Colleges and Universities Lose Elite Students
By Ian Crawford, Web Communications Editor

Elite black students are not attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) but instead are enrolling at more traditionally white institutions (TWIs). Consequently, the relative wages of HBCU graduates have decreased. This could prove a problem for HBCUs in explaining their real value.

This problem is highlighted in a recent report, The Causes and Consequences of Attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

In the 1970s, black graduates of HBCUs were more assured of graduating and earning a higher wage relative to black graduates of TWIs. However, by the 1990s, black graduates of HBCUs have experienced a 20 percent decline in relative wages.

The authors of the report say that this trend may not necessarily have anything to do with black colleges but is a reflection on how much better traditionally white colleges are at enrolling elite black students.

In an article in Inside Higher Ed, Michael L. Lomax, president of the United Negro College Fund was asked for comments on the report:

[He said] that it raises “complex” questions. He said that a key difference to consider is that in the first time period covered by the scholars, black colleges were attracting significant numbers of students from professional, middle-class black families. These are now the students who “are cherry-picked by highly selective, prestigious institutions” that weren't looking for them in the 1970s, Lomax said.

Lomax stressed that there was nothing wrong with those institutions recruiting black students. “It's a wonderful thing for those students,” he said.

But Lomax said that black colleges in the 1970s and today also make a lot of room for students who are the first in their families to attend college, who have academic talent despite having attended poor high schools, and who may have little or no money. Wealthier institutions can offer lots of aid — and not all of it based on need — to attract the better prepared and more affluent black students who once were a key part of a black college's student body, he said.

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The Causes and Consequences of Attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities
– National Bureau of Economic Research

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Story posted April 24, 2007.

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