The American Institute for Boys and Men, a research and policy advocacy center devoted to men’s concerns, released a report recently that shows a sharp decline in Black male enrollment at historically Black schools and universities over the previous 50 years.
Black men accounted for just 26% of HBCU students in 2022, down from 31% in 2005 and 38% in 1976, according to a report released late last month. It is based on enrollment statistics from the Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Statistics System. Meanwhile, around half of HBCU enrollees continue to be black women. And increasing numbers of non-Black students are enrolling to make up the shortfall.
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Except for colleges that are exclusively for males, like Morehouse and Spelman Colleges, only 20 of the 101 HBCUs that were included in the research had student populations that were at least 40% Black men. Small private universities with an average enrollment of less than 1,000 students made up all but one of the HBCUs with greater percentages of Black men.
The American Institute for Boys and Men’s president, Richard Reeves, finds it concerning that fewer Black men are enrolled in HBCUs now than there were in the 1970s, particularly considering the institution’s contribution to Black students’ economic mobility and to the development of pathways leading to graduate programs, professional careers, and leadership positions.
He acknowledged that “there are some signs of hope,” such as an increase in Black men’s enrollment from 2020 to 2022 that helped to somewhat offset the COVID-19 losses, “there are many, many more signs that there’s a big problem here.”
Over the past few decades, HBCUs and most of higher education have had overall enrollment drops; however, the survey found particularly sharp losses among Black men.
Between 2010 and 2022, the overall enrollment at HBCUs decreased by 11%, while the enrollment of Black men at those schools decreased by 25%. The overall reduction in black male attendance in colleges and universities was slightly less, at 22%; this decline was part of a larger decline in male enrollment overall. at contrast, the percentage of non-Black students enrolled at HBCUs increased from 15% in 1976 to 24% in 2022.
Reeves noted, “If you’re at an HBCU as a student, and you’re looking around and you know that you’re as likely to see a non-Black student as a Black man, that’s a very big change in the culture and the mission of HBCUs.”
The research also discovered that the number of Black men enrolled in each HBCU varied greatly. For instance, according to 2022 IPEDS statistics, Black men only accounted for 4% of students at San Antonio’s St. Philip’s College, a historically Black community college that serves the Hispanic population. Nonetheless, at Alabama A&M University and North Carolina A&T State University, they made up 33% and 29% of the student bodies, respectively. In 2022, the percentage of Black men enrolled at Howard University was 19%, while the percentages at Morgan State University and Tennessee State University were 26%.
Although Black men now make up around 25% of Howard’s student body, Calvin Hadley, associate provost for academic partnerships and student involvement, said their absence is still evident.
“That 25 percent, you feel that in every class, you feel that on the yard, you feel that at events,” he indicated. Notably, there are “far more females on campus than males.”
Hadley emphasized that there is cause for celebration over the increased enrollment of Black women. He said, “We need to ensure that Black men keep up and see themselves as capable of achieving those goals, too, with all of these educated Black women who graduate and get out there and become the CEOs and executives they will.”
The research identified many potential causes for the low enrollment of Black males, including the persistent underfunding of historically black colleges (HBCUs), which may restrict their ability to attract students and provide financial assistance.
According to Wesley Wells, vice president for student achievement at St. Philip’s College, males from minority backgrounds frequently experience extra pressure to enter the job right away in order to provide for their family. For this reason, he believes that St. Philip’s workforce training programs, which cover trades like construction and aviation maintenance, are an excellent means of attracting them. In an additional attempt to keep such students, the institution launched a branch of Collegiate 100, a nationwide organization dedicated to empowering and educating Black kids, as well as the Blue Blazer Society, a mentorship program that was first developed to assist men of color.
According to Hadley, Howard consciously looks to hire Black male students from high schools with substantial Black male enrollment and finds a means to get them to campus. Over 150 local kids have visited Howard for the previous two years as part of the DC Public Schools’ Empowering Males of Color project, which Howard has hosted as its capstone ceremony. To provide Black male students from the neighboring Maryland county with a stronger transfer pipeline, the institution is also collaborating with Prince George’s Community College.
The report also addressed issues that Black boys must deal with in K–12 that could eventually affect enrollment rates, such as the lack of Black male role models in the form of teachers, inadequate preparation in certain underfunded schools, and a pervasive “belief gap” that harms Black boys’ academic performance due to messages from teachers and other sources.
Hadley underlined that retention initiatives are equally as crucial as recruiting since, for many Black men who do enroll at Howard, the issues with self-confidence may not always disappear. For this reason, Howard provides a range of services aimed at Black males, such as the males of the Mecca Initiative, which he started and is currently student-led. It provides casual mentoring and “barbershop talks” on a variety of subjects, including masculinity. There are specialized support programs for Black men’s achievement offered by the business school and the College of arts and Sciences.
“For so many of our scholars, a big part of what we’re doing is … helping to clean the mirror, helping to clarify what you can actually be [and] how high you can actually reach, and then giving you the tools, resources, and experiences to do that,” he noted.
According to the survey, HBCU students have upward mobility rates that are almost twice as high as those of other college students. This means that they go from the lowest income quintile to the highest. A minimum of 50% of HBCU alums advance through at least one income quintile; this percentage is around 50% more than that of all other college grads.
The consequences of Black males losing out on the advantages of HBCUs, according to Derrick Brooms, executive director of the Black Males’ Research Institute at Morehouse College, might be extensive. He pointed out that Black students at HBCUs report having a stronger “sense of cultural belonging”; in STEM programs and other sectors where Black males are underrepresented, they have instructors who look like them, and they experience fewer instances of racism and microaggressions.
