HBCUs Seeking Others
According to an Aug. 17, 2011, Wall Street Journal article titled Recruiters at Black Colleges Break From Tradition, HBCUs such as Tennessee State University, Delaware State University and Paul Quinn College are no longer focusing exclusively on recruiting African-Americans. The writer of the article notes that Tennessee State University’s Black enrollment was reduced to around 70 percent, while Paul Quinn College’s Black enrollment had been predicted to fall from 94 percent to 85 percent for the fall 2011 academic year.
If It’s Not Black, They Won’t Come
Research shows that when African-American faculty at HBCUs is a majority, African-American students tend to enroll at a higher percentage and they tend to be more productive in the workplace once they graduate. In other words, if the African-American faculty enrollment at HBCUs is low, African-American students tend not to attend HBCUs.
At Bluefield College, an HBCU in West Virginia, the African-American faculty has dwindled to less than 1 percent from previous decades. The African-American student enrollment had also decreased to less than 10 percent, making it a majority white population school.
