A response from Marybeth Gasman (HBCU research expert) on the Wall Street Journal Article

False Comparisons: the Plight of Historically Black Colleges?

By Marybeth Gasman

No matter how many times historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) demonstrate progress and success, they continue to take a beating from ill-informed critics. The latest incident appeared in The Wall Street Journal. Once again, the author used flawed analysis in an attempt to show that HBCUs are inferior.

Since their inception, many people have labeled HBCUs inferior even though they are responsible for educating the majority of the African-American middle class as we know it. When hurling criticism at HBCUs, most naysayers point to the words of Black conservatives—such as Thomas Sowell, who has lambasted HBCUs for decades, or sociologists Christopher Jencks and Davie Riesman, whose 1967 study of HBCUs labeled them “academic disaster areas.” What these critics fail to realize is that neither Sowell nor Jencks and Riesman did empirical research on HBCUs to make their claims—instead, they relied only on anecdote and personal experience.

In addition, those scholars compared HBCUs to Ivy League universities and the most well-funded, prestigious public institutions in the country. There are few public or private institutions in the United States that stand up to those comparisons. Yet time and time again, critics of HBCUs make these false assessments. Such judgments are patently unfair and undermine any serious discussions on the true value of HBCUs.

A fair assessment of the work of HBCUs, places them side by side with historically white institutions (HWIs) with similar student populations. Specifically, we should compare them to institutions in a few of the Southern states with like percentages of Pell Grant eligible students and like SAT scores. Such an evaluation would show that in many cases HBCUs are doing a better job of educating African-American students. Moreover, they have done so with far fewer resources than their HWI counterparts.

Some HBCUs are struggling, but there are HWIs that show the same deficiencies. Making sweeping generalizations about HBCUs does an enormous disservice to these institutions, their faculty, and their graduates. Critics should look at HBCU production of Black scientists, doctors, pharmacists, teachers, and engineers. Large numbers of these professionals earned and continue to earn their undergraduate or professional degrees at HBCUs. These institutions offer a needed and necessary choice to students in our diverse system of higher education.

Like previous U.S. presidents, Barack Obama has invested a considerable amount of money in HBCUs. He is holding these institutions accountable, pushing for higher graduation rates and demanding that they build their endowments. The president realizes that HBCUs are integral to his goal of increasing higher education for all Americans. In fact, the recent White House conference on HBCUs was a refreshing conversation on these institutions—offering sessions on fundraising, retention and graduation rates, on-line education, and public-private partnerships, among other topics. The conversations were forward thinking and pushed for change and growth.

Perhaps the far more important story that should be written about these institutions, is how President Obama’s emphasis on measurable outcomes and accountability has found allies in a generation of HBCU leaders who are creating cultures of excellence and empowerment on their campuses. These leaders, combined with the Obama administration’s vision, represent the best opportunity for significant change in the HBCU marketplace in years. But, why would anyone want to talk about people with solutions when re-hashing old and inaccurate arguments is still so well received?

This blog post was written with Michael J. Sorrell, the president of Paul Quinn College, a Black college in Dallas, Texas.

The Wall Street Journal Article

Please make sure you read my post about HBCU alumni need to make ourself known

Black Colleges Need a New Mission

Once an essential response to racism, they are now academically inferior.

...

By JASON L. RILEY<http://online.wsj.com/search/term.html?KEYWORDS=JASON+L.+RILEY&bylinesearch=true>

President Obama has shown a commendable willingness to shake up the status quo in K-12 education by advocating reforms, such as charter schools, that have left his teachers union base none-too-pleased. So it's unfortunate that he has such a conventional approach to higher education, and to historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in particular.

Earlier this month, Mr. Obama hosted a White House reception to celebrate the contributions of the nation's 105 black colleges and to reiterate his pledge to invest another $850 million in these institutions over the next decade.

Recalling the circumstances under which many of these schools were created after the Civil War, the president noted that "at a critical time in our nation's history, HBCUs waged war against illiteracy and ignorance and won." He added: "You have made it possible for millions of people to achieve their dreams and gave so many young people a chance they never thought they'd have, a chance that nobody else would give them."

The reality today, however, is that there's no shortage of traditional colleges willing to give black students a chance. When segregation was legal, black colleges were responsible for almost all black collegians. Today, nearly 90% of black students spurn such schools, and the available evidence shows that, in the main, these students are better off exercising their non-HBCU options.

"Even the best black colleges and universities do not approach the standards of quality of respectable institutions," according to economist Thomas Sowell. "None has a department ranking among the leading graduate departments in any of the 29 fields surveyed by the American Council of Education. None ranks among the 'selective' institutions with regard to student admissions. None has a student body whose College Board scores are within 100 points of any school in the Ivy League."

Mr. Sowell wrote that in an academic journal in 1974, yet with few exceptions the description remains accurate. These days the better black schools—Howard, Spelman, Morehouse—are rated "selective" in the U.S. News rankings, but their average SAT scores still lag behind those at decent state schools like the University of Texas at Austin, never mind a Stanford or Yale.

In 2006, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the six-year graduation rate at HBCUs was 37%. That's 20 percentage points below the national average and eight percentage points below the average of black students at other colleges. A recent Washington Monthly magazine survey of colleges with the worst graduation rates featured black schools in first and second place, and in eight of the top 24 spots.

The economists Roland Fryer of Harvard and Michael Greenstone of MIT have found that black colleges are inferior to traditional schools in preparing students for post-college life. "In the 1970s, HBCU matriculation was associated with higher wages and an increased probability of graduation, relative to attending a [traditional college]," they wrote in a 2007 paper. "By the 1990s, however, there is a substantial wage penalty. Overall, there is a 20% decline in the relative wages of HBCU graduates in just two decades." The authors concluded that "by some measures, HBCU attendance appears to retard black progress."

Mr. Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan have urged HBCUs to improve their graduation rates—Mr. Duncan has said they need to increase "exponentially"—but the administration has brought little pressure to bear and is offering substantial financial assistance to keep them afloat. Howard and Spelman have endowments valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but a large majority of black colleges have very small endowments and more than 80% get most of their revenue from the government.

Instead of more subsidies and toothless warnings to shape up, Mr. Obama ought to use the federal government's leverage to remake these schools to meet today's challenges.

Uneconomically small black colleges could be consolidated. For-profit entities could be brought in to manage other schools. (For the past two years, the University of Phoenix, a for-profit college, has conferred more bachelor's degrees on black students than any other school.) Still other HBCUs could be repurposed as community colleges that focus on developmental courses to compensate for the poor elementary and secondary educations that so many black children still receive.

In 1967, two white academics, Christopher Jencks and David Riesman, published a bleak but prescient assessment of black colleges in the Harvard Educational Review. They predicted that these schools are "for the most part, likely to remain fourth-rate institutions at the tail end of the academic procession." Messrs. Jencks and Riesman were called racists, and honest comprehensive studies of black colleges have since been rare.

Black colleges are at a crossroads. At one time black colleges were an essential response to racism. They trained a generation of civil rights lawyers and activists who helped end segregation. Their place in U.S. history is secure. Today, however, dwindling enrollments and endowments indicate that fewer and fewer blacks believe that these schools, as currently constituted, represent the best available academic choice.

A black president is uniquely qualified to restart this discussion. Anyone who cares about the future of black higher education should hope that he does.

Mr. Riley is a member of the Journal's editorial board.

Why We As HBCU Alumni Need To Make Ourselves Known

Like everything in this world things can be better and we as a human race should strive to offer our resources to improve the things we care about!  There was an article published in the Wall Street Journal about Black colleges, and lots of negative information was once again said about us and our schools.  I am tired of people talking about HBCUs and how they are no longer beneficial but they never take the time to find out from an actual HBCU graduate about their experience.  While reading this article I kept asking myself why do they insist on comparing HBCUs to an Ivy League school, we never professed to be better than an Ivy League school so why are you bring up statistics that really have no significance.  Anyway HBCU alumni, current students, faculty, staff and administrators understand that HBCUs need to continue to strive for excellence and ways to take our service to students to another level, but it makes it very difficult when outsiders insist on polluting the public's mind with only negative information about HBCUs.  It is known that it takes a lot more positive comments to cancel out one negative, so HBCU alumni and supporters we have some work to do!  Post positive comments about your experience(s) where ever you can! We are in this fight together!

Choosing Not To Go To An HBCU, WHY?

Mom/Dad, I think I want to go to a Black college! When your child expresses interest about going to a Black college, there sometimes is a lot of support or there is major hesitation. I have a cousin who is looking into what college they want to attend and it really brought to my attention how times have changed from only having the option of going to an HBCU, to now they have a plethora of universities they can choose from. I bring this topic up because studies have shown that African American enrollment has declined at Black colleges. It bothers me as an alumnus from a HBCU, because I refuse to believe that the only reason a black student decides on a non HBCU is because they have more money. What are your thoughts about reasons why students are choosing the other options?