A lot of factors contribute to your success in college, from the academic rigor of your classes to the campus environment. The educational excellence and rich history and culture of HBCUs make them important options for many students across the U.S. In this conversation, two college admissions professionals share how their experiences at HBCUs set the stage for success in their own lives and the extraordinary return on investment for any student who attends.
Guests: Tahirah Crawford, Director of College Placement at People's Preparatory Charter in New Jersey; Joseph Montgomery, Vice President of Enrollment Management and Student Success at Tuskegee University. Moderated by Eddie Pickett, Senior Associate Dean of Admissions and Director of Recruitment at Pomona College.
Eddie Pickett: Hello, and welcome to the College Admissions Decoded podcast, an occasional series in the National Association for College Admission Counseling, or NACAC. I'm your host, Eddie Pickett. I'm a long time NACAC member and a member of the NACAC board of directors. In my day job, I'm a Senior Associate Dean of Admissions and Director of Recruitment at Pomona College in Claremont, California. NACAC is an association of more than 25,000 professionals at high schools, colleges, universities and nonprofit organizations, as well as independent counselors, who support and advise students and families through the college admissions process.
Pickett: Our topic today is historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs. Some of you may be very familiar with these extraordinary institutions. For others, this may be an introduction or reintroduction. First, a little background. Historically Black colleges and universities were established in early 19th century to provide undergraduate and graduate level education opportunities to people of African descent. Back then, Black students were unwelcome in existing public and private institutions of higher education, resulting in a lack of higher education opportunities for an entire race.
Pickett: Today, there are 107 HBCUs in the United States, located mostly in the south and southeast. Let's just run down a "few", and I put few in air quotes, wink wink, names of people you may know who are HBCU graduates: Martin Luther King, Jr., Samuel L. Jackson and Spike Lee from Morehouse College; Toni Morrison, sisters, Debbie Allen and Phylicia Rashad, and Thurgood Marshall at Howard; standup comedians, Wanda Sykes and Marlon Wayans; actors, Chadwick Boseman and Taraji P. Henson; football legends, Jerry Rice and Walter Payton; musicians, P. Diddy, Yolanda Adams, Erykah Badu, Toni Braxton and Wale; Oprah Winfrey, the late great John Lewis, and a couple of people who aren't also highlighted all the time, but should be, are some Black women. We've got Deborah A. Cole who is the president and CEO of the Citizens Bank, one of the oldest Black-owned bank still in existence, and even our own, Shanda T. Ivory, who's the Director of Special Projects, and one of the producers here of this NACAC podcast.
Pickett: From million dollar investments by some of the country's most prominent philanthropists, to Deion Sanders bringing notoriety back to HBCU football, to the election of Kamala Harris, a Howard graduate, to the vice president of the United States, HBCUs are having a moment in public's consciousness. I'm joined today by two NACAC members who know a lot about the college admissions process in HBCUs. First, we have Tahirah Crawford, Director of College Placement at People's Preparatory Charter in Newark, New Jersey.
Tahirah Jordan Crawford:
Hello.
Pickett: It's nice to see you again, Tahirah. Tahirah and I are both on the NACAC board right now, so we spent some time together. And next up, we have Joseph Montgomery, or as he said today, Mr. Joe, Vice President of Enrollment Management and Student Success at Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama.
Joseph Montgomery:
Eddie, thanks for having me.
Pickett: Yeah. We're excited to have you both. As a person who has multiple HBCUs in my own family, I'm excited to have this conversation. So we're just going to jump in. Can you both tell us a little bit about your background and the work you do with HBCUs? I think we'll start with Joe.
Montgomery: Well, my background started in my undergrad. I started with historically Black colleges and universities as a first generation student in 1996 at Voorhees College. It's located in Denmark, South Carolina. And then, I continued at Voorhees and started my admissions career there. And then later, had some, what I call, big historically Black college and universities experiences at the North Carolina A & T State University, where I worked in admissions and also obtained a graduate degree from A & T.
Pickett: Shout out to A & T and their track team right now too. If anybody watches college track, they've been a top track team for the last couple of years. Tahirah, what about you?
Crawford: So, like Joe, I am a double HBCU graduate. I have done my undergraduate education at the standard of excellence, Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia, and then went on to become a legal Eagle and got my Juris doctorate from North Carolina Central University School of Law. And, I like to say that I am a self-proclaimed HBCU expert, because every single person who has gone to college in my family has gone to an HBCU on the undergraduate level. So we cover a lot of different institutions and a lot of different experiences, so I tell the people all the time that it is a lifestyle choice for us that runs very deep.
Pickett: I love that, and shout out to those Pirates at Hampton. That was one of the first college campuses I ever visited. My aunt went there, and so I used to go hang out with her. So, always fun and I love me some Hampton.
Crawford: Life changing.
Pickett: Yes, ma'am. HBCUs have always offered access to higher education. Could we talk a little bit about why that access to higher education is even a question today?
Montgomery: So I think, Eddie, that when you have conversations with extended family members, church members, and so on, that are in the professional world, you begin to realize that their start, the incubation point of their careers started at historically Black colleges and universities. But we have a tendency of masking behind where we got our professional degrees from, and it doesn't highlight the hard work that was done at the historically Black college or university, to really kind of set the trajectory for people in our community who we view as being successful, teachers, doctors, lawyers and the alikes. And so when we started asking the question around why and access and so on, our campuses have always had virtually an open door policy, where we started from a point of really providing a way, from training to then formalized education. And so, our goal was to make certain that we provide knowledge, that will then provide skills, that will then lead to employment opportunities.
Crawford: And, if I may add something to what Joe has already said is that, I think that access still continues to be a question today, particularly in the Black community, because of a conversation that is often marketed and targeted to our students, and that is, if college is even the right choice for them. And so I think, we could debate all day if college is right for everyone and that whole conversation. But I think, often, what happens with a lot of students in our community is that, we have this conversation of, are you ready? There's a readiness conversation. There's a "Do you have the soft skills and the non-cognitives to make the transition?" that I think may be intimidating for a lot of students. And so, it may seem as if higher education is not as attainable or not accessible for many of our students. And I think that HBCUs kind of lead the charge in dispelling that myth often.
Pickett: Yeah. I love that idea of dispelling the myth. That's one of those pieces we always talk about, what assumptions are you making about these people that you may or may not know? And, thinking about community, Tahirah, you said something about community in there. I want to pick up on that idea of community. So, what do HBCUs offer students, that other institutions may not? And let's just start with homecoming, because we got to talk about homecoming at HBCUs.
Crawford: Oh gosh. Listen, homecoming is so big, that I have started planning two years in advance for Homecoming 2022, and being on the yard and what that's going to bring. But really, to answer your question is that, there are many life lessons and experiences that will happen at a HBCU that I would argue cannot happen anywhere else. There is a pivotal period in every young person's life that college is meant to help guide you through. And I think that to do that, and have the opportunity to have this self-exploration in a place where you can, what I like to say, fail forward and achieve at the same time, with a community of people who can be your peers, can be your elders, they offer support and guidance, and they also offer condemnation when appropriate too. And I think that that can never be replicated or duplicated in any other way in any environment. And homecoming is, to me, a manifestation of all of that. It's a manifestation of all of the love and the journey and the experiences that we've had together. And so it's just like a family reunion.
Pickett: You going to start singing some OJs with that too.
Crawford: I would love to sing some OJ.
Montgomery: So I actually love your response, because the feeling that you get when you go back to homecoming is all of the experiences that you had on the campus. My school, Voorhees, my undergraduate, it was very small. We had about 950 students. So, even when I see someone who's connected to the university, whether it's homecoming or whether it's in the airport in passing, it's like seeing a family member. And, because of that shared experience on a campus that's in those very small town, there is an immediate connection. To us understanding the path that we travel to get to where we are, and then see life grow and develop beyond the walls of Voorhees is special to me. And it being in an environment, where those types of experiences are all together and that we are celebrating each other and we're celebrating the past and all of the different paths that we have taken along the way, it's just the annual culmination of that.
Montgomery: And it also gives me hope that the dreams that I have in the future are still attainable, because we encourage each other along the way. And, I would not trade my experience for any other experience. It was the first time I was able to love myself as a Black person in America, but love myself as an educated Black man in America, while I was in an HBCU. Prior to going to an HBCU, I only had three African Americans that taught me from kindergarten to 12th grade. And it was the first time I sat in a classroom or sat in an environment, and I looked at the community that I was in, and it fully empowered me that I had the intellectual prowess to do well in school, and then also had this sense of pride about it. And so, that's what Voorhees gave to me. That's why I continue to work in the HBCU space, because I see that happening today at Tuskegee.
Pickett: Mr. Joe, I loved what you said there about the pride and the passion. I want to pick up on that. Graduates and employees and other affiliates with HBCUs are so passionate and prideful with them. Tahirah, can you tell us how that pride and passion are built on campus, and how folks have sustained that?
Crawford: Yeah, I mean, honestly, trying to put that into words is a very difficult thing to do. I like to say it's a transformational. But, pride tradition and heritage is woven through almost everything that we do as students at HBCUs. From orientation to classes, to your extracurriculars outside of class, experiential learning, you will have a lesson in tradition and heritage in almost everything that you do. And so, I think what all of that culminates into is this sense that you are contributing to a legacy that goes well beyond you. And I think the pride and the passion comes from your thinking of, "I have to be a good steward of X's legacy." So for me as a Hamptonian, I want to be a good steward of Booker T. Washington's legacy. For those who come from other institutions, you may be a student at Bethune–Cookman, you will say, "I want to carry out the legacy of Mary McLeod Bethune."
Crawford: Because, quite honestly, if we think about the history of HBCUs and why many of them exist, it is because we were finding ways to endure and thrive in an environment that did not want us to endure and thrive. And it means something, when you can say hundreds of years later, because of decisions that people like me made and continued to make, these institutions live, a professional class of Black people in America exist that would have not existed, but for X, Y and Z, that gives you a confidence that is unknown. So for me, I would say that the passion comes from a purpose that is greater than just ourselves. We are very much taught that we are in a walk in a journey for our lives, but for the betterment of others' lives. So we are on this walk, we're on this journey, we're doing this thing, we want to be great professionals, but it's not just about us. It's about the greater good of our whole community as we move through.
Crawford: And so that is a heavy weight when we sit back and reflect on it, but it's also a great fuel and motivator. And I will say, Joe is at Tuskegee, who Booker T. Washington's founder is a founder of Tuskegee. So I like to say that's our sister institution. But the rich history at even the institution of Tuskegee is amazing. Can you imagine George Washington Carver, to be a student, walk on those grounds every day? You feel it in your spirit, to be quite honest. Even if you're doing that every day, as you're walking through campus, you cannot help but to feel passion and pride.
Pickett: That sense of pride just keeps coming back and back. And I just love to hear that personally. I mean, I didn't go to an HBCU. Again, I have multiple family members who do, and so we have this conversation like, "Hey, what was different about your institution versus mine?" So an HBCU versus a PWI, which is a predominantly white institution. Now it's also being known as historically white institutions at some of the schools too. But, there's a different experience there. For me, I went to school, from high school, with 4,000 people and 30% Black, to college with 1005% Black. You want to talk about an experience and a culture shock? Oh, it was a culture shock. So I found myself watching drum line every single day on campus. That's what college is supposed to be like.
Pickett: So, I think... I'm going to start with Tahirah on this one, because you're on the high school side. And so as you're counseling students, how do you talk about the similarities, differences, of experience, academics, education, life in general, about HBCUs versus PWIs, or just HBCUs and PWIs alongside each other?
Crawford: Yeah, that's a great question. I kid you not, I just had this conversation, probably about three hours ago, with a young woman that is going through this exact same process. So, I'm going to share with you the conversation that I had with her. And it was generally surrounding, "What are you looking for out of your collegiate experience?" There are many institutions in this country that will give students a wonderful education. I do not question that the vast majority of higher education institutions in this country will give students a solid academic foundation to propel them to do wonderful things. However, as we all know, college is more than just what you learn in a classroom. A large part of it is about what type of person you're going to become, as you are going through your collegiate career.
Crawford: And so, I said to her, "What experiences do you want to have? Do you want to have experiences where your professor knows you through and through as a person, the challenges that you may personally face and struggle with? Do you want someone who, as I used to do, kick my feet up on the desk of the dean's office and tell him all about my woes and my problems? And he would give me very fatherly and parental advice that guided me through my life. Do you want that experience? Or are you someone who's like, 'I am perfectly fine walking through environments where not a lot of people know me, where I can't just bust into the dean's office and say, I'm having a rough day. I need you to stop running the School of Business and talk to me.'" I don't know that every environment is like that, but I think a lot of HBCUs are known for being nurturing very individualistic experiences. "And so, are you the type of student that needs or is wanting or looking for that?"
Crawford: I think the other thing that is huge for students from PWIs and HBCUs is this, and it comes out a little bit in homecoming as well. It is very hard to navigate professional spaces as people of color in the world, in this country, but in the world. And sometimes, you need to be equipped and armored with coping mechanisms to be able to do that, in a way where you do not feel devalued, where you don't feel further marginalized and you can feel empowered. And I think that, experiences at HBCUs gives you, not reprieve, I don't want to use that word, but it gives you time to armor up, to engage the world in a particular way. So I think that that is huge, and I do not think that every student needs that. I think that there are some students who come ready to engage all different types of environments and don't need the same tools and resources as others. So I think, you have to get on those campuses and evaluate that for yourself.
Crawford: But I will finish my answer with this. There is grooming, there is preparing, and there is learning that happens outside of the classroom, that cannot be replicated or taught anywhere else but in HBCU. I will stick by that statement.
Montgomery: So I think it's important that our listeners really understand that historically Black colleges and universities are not monolithic, and that we are open to all students who are willing to learn in these environments. And that, just like you take the opportunity to learn other institutions as individual institutions, that prospective students and families who are thinking about maybe studying at historically Black colleges and universities, that they would take the time to understand the fabric of these institutions. Not all of our institutions are good matches for every brown student. Not every non-brown student should match with a PWI. We have very successful stories at Tuskegee where non-African American students are excelling at high levels. And, if students can see themselves on our campus and they match well on our campus, that's precisely what I'm looking for. And if you talk to other enrollment officers, they're looking for those at other historically Black colleges and universities also.
Pickett: We've talked a lot about communities so far. Let's get into the academics a little bit. And so, some people question the quality of academics at HBCUs. I don't do it myself, but some people do. Can you both comment on that? And I think we'll start with Mr. Joe first.
Montgomery: We get this all the time in the world of admissions and enrollment, where people are beginning... They question, "Can you get my kid to their dream?" And, I always ask the question about the fortitude of the student, right? Because they're going to challenge the student. We understand, these institutions understand that the product that we put in the world, there's an expectation. So, at Tuskegee, there is a brand of student that the industry is looking for. And so, not only are we trying to produce students to go into industry, but we're also trying to produce students that, instead of asking for a seat at the table, that we're producing the kinds of students who will then build their own tables. And so, it's not just about the quality of education to get them a job. What about the quality of education to develop jobs that aren't here? These are students who are now beginning to think of, where are we falling short in the world, and how do we come together to develop products and develop services that makes our world better?
Montgomery: So, when you start asking me questions about quality of education, well, Tuskegee, we have an influence of Black veterinarians. Over 74% of all Black veterinarians in America came through Tuskegee.
Pickett: Say that again.
Montgomery: Tuskegee is the largest producers of aerospace engineers. So, when NASA comes and Boeing comes and Lockheed Martin and so on, we are a number one destination for students who are graduating with a degree in aerospace engineering. So when people start asking me questions about the quality of education at our institutions, we are not subsidizing the education because you're brown. What we're doing is, we're saying, "Okay, you are at the starting line. And your starting line happens to be behind the starting line of other people. But it doesn't mean that you can't get to the finish line. You can get to the finish line, but it may not be in a four-year graduation rate. It may not be in a five-year graduation rate. It may be that you are here for six years."
Montgomery: These whole things about rankings and completion rates and so on, it is, how about all the students that we help get to par and they transition out of our institutions and then become successful at the other institutions? So, our work is not just about the completion rate, but our work is, what did we do to influence what's happening in our community of people?
Crawford: And Joe honestly took the words out of my head. I was going to say my mouth, but out of my head is that, there seems to be this correlation often with graduation rates and quality of academic experience, and HBCUs, I think, often suffer from just people making this correlation, "Well, how many people are you graduating?" and things like that. But I tell people all the time, "Yes, that is somewhat of an indicator of academic preparation there. But can we just talk about that it's also a representation of HBCUs being institutions that are taking on some of the most vulnerable and highest needs students that other institutions aren't willing to take on, and then servicing them, simultaneously attacking so many different problems, while being underfunded and underresourced?"
Pickett: Truth. Absolutely the truth. I think there's two things I want to pick up on there. There's a finance question, which we're going to get to after, but the academic quality and some of the statistics. Let's dive in a little bit into that. We'll just use STEM as the example. So, Howard is the number one producer of Black pre-med students. Xavier University of Louisiana, New Orleans is the number one producer of Black medical graduates. And they only have 2,500 students. Keep in mind, there are 107 HBCUs, and about 3,000 four-year colleges and 4,000 total colleges, two-year and four-year. I've seen some stats that show that HBCUs generated 25% of all bachelor's degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics earned by African Americans, and awarded 14% of all African American engineering degrees. Why is that important?
Montgomery: I mean, just think about it. If we were not producing professionals in the STEM field or engineering field or in medicine or law, if these institutions were not here, then we would not have a representation in our society of professionals that are helping to serve our community of people. So, we got to make certain that our voice remains at the table. I think about politics a lot. I think about policy a lot. When people start thinking about what governs the country, it's all about policy. And who's shaping the policy? And are we included in policy development, policy shifts, amendments to policies? If our voice isn't at the table, then who is going to be the ones that are going to be making certain that our communities are represented in any portions of the fabric of this country? And so our institutions have been able to produce professionals that will allow us the opportunity to be at the table, to make certain that our voices are included.
Pickett: So just a quick stat, in 2020, non-Black students made up 24% of enrollment at HBCUs, compared to 15% in 1976. So, almost a quarter of the enrollment at HBCUs are non-Black students. I want to toss that in, but, Tahirah, I want to hear your answer to that as well.
Crawford: Why it's important to me is that, I imagine, if every student of all of our students who come from our community are able to access places where they have the ability to put in their skills, their talents, all of their abilities, and a place that will be very supportive, that will push them to reach a certain standard and result, imagine what those numbers would be like. So, to me, it's important because it's indicative of all that HBCUs can do, when students are given the opportunity to access that type of education.
Montgomery: You know, you've triggered a thought, Tahirah. I had a conversation with my 15 year old. I'm in a fraternity. And so, it was kind of like a fathers bring your son type situation. And, I'm introducing him to all of the fraternity guys. And, we were riding home and he was just like, "Oh, I mean, there's a lot of doctors. There's a lot of lawyers. There's a lot of military officers." And I'm like, "That's abnormal. It's abnormal to walk in a room where you got colonels and generals along with physicians and attorneys and so on, and they're all Black men. It is abnormal, and I need you to understand that all of those men worked their butts off to get to where they are. But many of them, when you think about their start, they had their start at historically Black colleges or universities."
Pickett: I think finances in the Black world and the HBCU world have been a hot topic, we'll say, but a lot of people forget about the history of how the US has not necessarily helped Black folks. There's a really good book called The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, that'll show you the disparities between Black and white wealth, and how also the government played a part in this. So I think I'm going to throw this to Mr. Joe first. And that question being just, the cost of attending college increases each year. What is the value of attending an HBCU, relating to the cost of attendance?
Montgomery: So this is a topic of conversation at a place like Tuskegee constantly because we are a private institution. Our direct cost of attendance is about $35,000 a year. And then we say cost of attendance is at $41,000. With 65% of our students at Tuskegee, they are eligible students. And so, the value of the education is valued based upon, what happens with you beyond your time at Tuskegee? What happened if you didn't have this opportunity, what earnings could you potentially have your max earning potential? And then think about and talk about what happens with most of our students when they graduate from this university. And so there is this value proposition.
Montgomery: I think we've also sold a falsehood in America that every student can go to college with a scholarship. I have to shift that conversation a lot about investing. What is your personal investment in the work that you're doing? And that's in self-investment, coupled with all of the work that we're doing to offset the cost of attendance. Our institutions don't have large endowments. So we don't have what we call solvent endowments, which means that we should have two and a half times the operating expenses in our endowments. The school that's closest to that is Spelman. And so, our institutions are continuing to grow our endowments, so that we can become more affordable.
Montgomery: Many people forget that these institutions were started with nothing. They were started out of concepts. They were not started out of some billionaire saying that, "I want to start a school and put my name on it." And that these institutions are still in an infancy state, in comparison to many of the institutions that we get compared to. And then, our federal government and our state government, even when they came with the Morrill Act of 1890, we didn't get funded the same way that other land grant institutions got funded. The federal government gave the funding, but the states, in some worlds, only gave 25% of what... The match was only 25% of what we should have gotten for years.
Montgomery: We've seen precedent set in Maryland, where Maryland is now giving the historically Black colleges and universities, I shouldn't say give, award them back pay, that they should have gotten along the way. Over $550 million will be given over the next 10 years to the historically Black colleges and universities that are in the state of Maryland, because they've been underfunded since their inception. So, there is a reckoning that's happening. Is it happening fast enough? No. And there are other historically Black colleges and universities that should get more funding to help underwrite the education at our institutions, and then level the playing field for students that are trying to enroll.
Crawford: And if I can just jump in really quickly and say this, I could talk about cost and HBCUs all day, but the counselor in me has to start with this. I think that people need to understand that education is something that is invaluable, right? Investment in your education, the return on investment can be eternally growing. But, you have to have a long term sustainable plan for paying for college. To something that Joe said earlier, it could be four years or less that you're out of school. It could be six years or maybe more that it takes you to get out of school. But you need to have a long term sustainable plan to pay. And as you already mentioned, Eddie, school increases every single year. So when you're looking at going to any institution, you have to think about paying for the long haul.
Crawford: But with that said, what often happens in conversations about HBCUs and cost is we tend to focus on a very select few institutions. And most of those institutions tend to be HBCUs with some of the higher sticker prices. There are 107 HBCUs. There are some that are a steal with sticker price. Tuition, room, board, the whole shebang, you would probably look at it and say, "Are you kidding me?" I think we often focus on a certain school or certain few type of HBCUs when we talk about cost. And we need to diversify that, because there are some HBCUs that have quality, wonderful educations and experiences, that the cost is unheard of in today's higher education market.
Crawford: And then, I personally just have to tell this story really quickly. I went to the only undergraduate school that gave me $0. Every other school that I applied to gave me either a full ride, partial scholarship, what have you. And it's important for me to share that with people, because there are sacrifices that my family fortunately had the ability to make, for me to be able to be at the institution that I wanted to be at. That is not something I regret, not one day. My parents, and I think I can speak for them, do not regret the sacrifices that they had to make for me to be able to go to Hampton, because it was that impactful for my life. And it made such a huge difference for the person that I was going to become.
Pickett: I'm afraid that's all the time we have today. So I want to thank our guests, Tahirah and Mr. Joe, for a great conversation. And thanks to you in the audience for joining us for this conversation of NACAC's podcast.
Pickett: College Admissions Decoded is a podcast from NACAC, the National Association for College Admission Counseling. It is produced by LWC Studios. Kojin Tashiro produced this episode. If you would like to learn more about NACAC's guests, our organization, and the college admissions process, visit our website at nacacnet.org. That's N-A-C-A-C-N-E-T dot org. Please leave a review and rate us on Apple Podcasts. See you next time on College Admissions Decoded.
CITATION: National Association for College Admission Counseling. “Pride and Passion: The Enduring Legacy of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.” NACAC College Admissions Decoded, National Association for College Admissions Counseling, October 18, 2022.