On September 18, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack wrote letters to 16 governors, urging them to fairly fund historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) that receive land grants. The letters highlighted the significant funding gap between these institutions and their non-HBCU counterparts in the states.
According to the letters, there is an over $12 billion funding gap between land-grant HBCUs and other colleges and universities in the same states. Only Delaware and Ohio have been identified as states that have fairly supported their HBCUs. The letters emphasized the importance of equal distribution of state funds among land-grant institutions as mandated by the Second Morrill Act of 1890.
The Second Morrill Act required states to equally distribute state monies among their land-grant institutions that were established to serve Black students from 1862 to 1890. The First Morrill Act of 1862 provided states with federal land that could be sold to fund the colleges, leading to the founding of land-grant universities.
To determine the funding disparities, the departments used data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Integrated Postsecondary Education Survey (IPEDS), covering the years 1987 to 2020. The funding gaps range from $172 million to $2.1 billion in the states with land-grant HBCUs. These disparities have resulted in severe financial challenges for these institutions and have hindered their ability to invest in infrastructure, research and development, and student support services.
The Departments of Education and Agriculture have offered to collaborate with each state's budget office to examine the funding data and address the inequities. The goal is to bring balance to investments in land-grant HBCUs that have been significantly underfunded. The secretaries emphasized that it is crucial to compete at a high level and maintain the position of the United States as the world's top producer of talent and innovation.
Secretary Cardona stated, "unacceptable funding inequities have forced many of our country's distinguished Historically Black Colleges and Universities to operate with inadequate resources and delay critical investments in everything from campus infrastructure to research and development to student support services."
Closing the funding gap for land-grant HBCUs is essential to ensure equal opportunities for Black students and to support these institutions in their mission of providing quality education and driving innovation.
