What Biden’s $1.3 billion investment in HBCUs means this close to Election Day

Originally published by The 19th

by Nadra Nittle

The Biden-Harris administration announced this week $1.3 billion in federal funding to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), bringing its total support of these institutions to more than $17 billion since 2021.

“That’s the most any administration has ever, ever, ever, ever committed,” President Joe Biden said Monday as he announced the investment during the 2024 HBCU Week Conference in Philadelphia.

The conference is an annual meeting of college and university leaders, faculty and students that took place this year in collaboration with the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Excellence and Opportunity through HBCUs, the Executive Office of the President and the Department of Education. It aims to connect HBCUs with federal and private resources and kicked off the same day that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, sat for an interview with the National Association of Black Journalists to answer questions about her work for the Black community.

The interview took place in Philadelphia as multiple political polls of Pennsylvanians show Harris either leading or tied with former President Donald Trump in the swing state.

Since entering the White House in 2021, the Biden-Harris administration has touted its support of HBCUs, highlighting that Harris is an alumna of Howard University, an HBCU in Washington, D.C. Trump has also boasted about the funding he gave HBCUs as president, claiming that he “saved HBCUs” by signing the FUTURE Act, which renewed $85 million in federal funding for these institutions annually without needing congressional approval. He directed scholarship and research funding to HBCUs as well.

Trump’s claims that he saved HBCUs have been called “exaggerated” by PolitiFact and “offensive” by an HBCU leader. His administration’s investments in these colleges have not outpaced the Biden-Harris administration’s. The latest round of funding the White House has committed to the institutions includes $188 million in competitive grants, particularly those focused on research and development, through the Department of Education. Additionally, $1.1 billion in funding will go toward need-based grants, such as Pell Grants, for students from economically disadvantaged households. Upwards of 70 percent of HBCU students qualify for Pell Grants.

The latest infusion of funding for HBCUs “simply builds on the unprecedented track record of delivery for HBCUs that this administration has had,” Dietra Trent, executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs, told The 19th. “A large portion of those funds will go in direct support to our students through need-based grants and need-based aid. So in terms of how that will impact our students, it will help them pay for college. It will take the burden off of families. It will help them to stay in college, so it’s going to have a huge impact.”

Given that 64 percent of HBCU students are women and women’s enrollment at these colleges have edged out men’s since 1976, Trent said that women benefit significantly from the funding the Biden-Harris administration has directed to these institutions. Just under 10 percent of Black students attend HBCUs.

Although HBCUs represent just 3 percent of the nation’s colleges and universities, they admit twice as many Pell Grant-eligible students as other higher education institutions. To help students stay in college, Trent noted that the Biden-Harris administration increased the Pell Grant to $7,395 — $900 higher than it was during the 2022-23 school year and $500 higher than it was last school year. Students who attend HBCUs are more likely to complete their bachelor’s degrees than Black students who don’t. They also experience more upward mobility than most college students, with about 30 percent rising at least two income brackets compared with 18 percent for their peers at other higher education institutions, the White House said. The United Negro College Fund found that HBCUs lift more than five times as many students from the bottom 40 percent to the top 60 percent of U.S. household incomes compared with the nation’s most elite colleges and universities. Forty percent of Black engineers, 50 percent of Black teachers, 70 percent of Black doctors and dentists, and 80 percent of Black judges graduated from HBCUs, according to the White House.

HBCUs also play a role in the economy, making a $16.5 billion annual economic impact on communities nationwide and producing over 136,000 jobs and $146 billion in lifetime earnings for alumni, the White House said.

The Biden-Harris administration has taken a “whole of government approach” to supporting HBCUs, Trent said. This has led to a number of historic breakthroughs in collaborations, including: the first HBCU university-affiliated research center with the Department of Defense, the first HBCU-led university transportation center and support for broadband and telecommunications on HBCU campuses, according to Trent.

“Forty-three of our universities participated in a pilot program called Connecting Minority Communities. This program not only increases broadband on their campuses but also in their communities, and we know that 80 percent of our HBCUs are in broadband deserts,” Trent said.

The White House said that the $16 billion the Biden-Harris administration gave to HBCUs previously includes over $11.4 billion in federal grants, contracting awards and debt relief; over $4 billion for student financial aid and veteran educational benefits; and over $900 million for Department of Education programs to enhance HBCUs overall.

Under the Biden-Harris administration, the Department of Education has already given HBCUs about $25 million to improve research productivity, the White House said. The Department of Education also awarded $15 million in grants under the Augustus F. Hawkins Centers of Excellence Program to equip students at Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and HBCUs in Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina and Texas to become teachers.

Through the Maternal Health Research Collaborative for Minority-Serving Institutions under the Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau, seven HBCUs received $30 million in research support covering five years. The funding will help HBCUs research Black maternal health to identify the reasons for disparities and develop community-based solutions to counter them.

The National Science Foundation, as part of Growing Research Access for Nationally Transformative Equity and Diversity (GRANTED) initiative, awarded the Atlanta University Center Consortium — Clark Atlanta University, Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine and Spelman College for women — a $14 million competitive grant to foster equity in national research in a way that other HBCUs and budding research institutions can duplicate.

The investments the Biden-Harris administration have made in HBCUs reflect that it has valued diversity and inclusion since entering the White House, Trent said.

“This administration has supported HBCUs from day one,” she said. “They do understand that HBCUs have the outsized burden of diversifying America’s workforce, and so the administration has taken the approach that we’re going to support them.”

On Thursday, the Biden-Harris Administration announced that it had also awarded about $50 million to Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). The funds will be used to increase graduate opportunities for Latinx students, including in the STEM and education fields. With the funding, the administration also aims to improve educational attainment rates among Latinx students.

To date, the Biden-Harris administration said that it has routed more than $15 billion to HSIs — an unprecedented amount to these institutions.

“Our nation’s Hispanic-Serving Institutions open up new doors to opportunity and success for Hispanic and Latino students every day,” Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a statement. “The grants we’re announcing today double down on the Biden-Harris Administration’s historic investments in Hispanic-Serving Institutions and reflect our determination to raise the bar for educational opportunity and equity in America.”