By Dennis Richmond, Jr.
More than a decade ago, I started talking to students, mostly teens, about Historically Black Colleges and Universities because I knew firsthand what an HBCU could do.
I was a 19-year-old student at Claflin University when I began visiting schools and encouraging students in New York to consider HBCUs. That work grew into what became The New York–New Jersey HBCU Initiative.
Katrina Jefferson encouraged me to expand the name from The New York HBCU Initiative to The New York–New Jersey HBCU Initiative. Professor Patricia Koger of Claflin University gave me the words that became my tagline, “Beating the Drum for HBCUs.” And I am beating that drum again.
In 2020, the New York Amsterdam News described me as a “heartbeat” of the HBCU community. Six years later, I am continuing this work with an even greater sense of urgency.
The numbers help explain why. According to federal higher-education data, roughly 300,000 students attend HBCUs, and Black students continue to make up the majority of their enrollment. Yet HBCUs represent only a small fraction of American colleges and universities.
There are also encouraging signs for Black students nationally. According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s 2026 Persistence and Retention Report, 70 percent of Black students who entered college in fall 2024 remained enrolled the following fall, the highest Black persistence rate in more than a decade. Black student retention at the institutions where they started also rose to 59.6 percent.
Those numbers matter because they challenge an old and dangerous narrative that Black students are somehow disengaging from higher education.
HBCUs are not relics of the past. They are institutions competing for the next generation.
But their survival should never be taken for granted. Historically, America had more Black colleges than it has today. Some institutions have closed after confronting combinations of financial difficulties, declining enrollment, accreditation challenges, and other pressures. Others found survival through consolidation.
Clark Atlanta University is one of the most prominent examples. According to Clark Atlanta University’s official institutional history, Atlanta University, founded in 1865, and Clark College, founded in 1869, consolidated in 1988 to create the university we know today.
Funding inequity has also shaped the HBCU story for generations. Federal and state analyses have documented billions of dollars in historical funding disparities between Black land-grant universities and their predominantly white counterparts.
At the same time, new investment demonstrates that HBCUs remain essential to American higher education. According to the U.S. Department of Education, in September 2026, the federal government announced more than $174 million in additional one-time funding for HBCUs. The Department reported that, combined with $438 million in additional funding announced the previous year, more than $612 million in new HBCU funding was directed toward these institutions during fiscal years 2025 and 2026.
That investment matters. But money alone cannot introduce a ninth grader in Yonkers to Claflin University. A federal appropriation cannot put a Howard University brochure into the hands of a student in Mount Vernon. A statistic cannot sit down with a family in Harlem and explain that North Carolina A&T, S.C. State, Morehouse, FAMU, or one of our other HBCUs might be where their child belongs.
People have to do that work. That is why The New York–New Jersey HBCU Initiative is here.
I want students in Mount Vernon, Yonkers, New Rochelle, White Plains, the Bronx, and beyond to hold HBCU brochures in their hands. I want them to see the flags. I want them to learn the history. I want them to know about scholarships, admissions opportunities, and institutions they may never have encountered before.
Dennis Richmond, Jr. (@NewYorkStakz) is a journalist, historian, and educator from Yonkers, NY. He writes to uplift unheard voices, honor history, and inspire change.