In their final stops in North Carolina before Tuesday’s primary, Democratic presidential contenders Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden opted for appearances at historically black colleges and universities.
It’s just the latest example of the importance presidential campaigns have placed on HBCUs and on voters who care about the institutions, including students, administrators and a highly connected and engaged alumni base. All of the major Democratic candidates and President Donald Trump have released plans that include policies for helping the schools. North Carolina is home to 11 HBCUs.
Sanders, a Vermont senator, appeared before a capacity crowd of 1,400 at the C.E. Gaines Center at Winston-Salem State University on Thursday. Another 700 waited outside.
Biden, the former vice president, spoke at St. Augustine’s University in Raleigh on Saturday. Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s campaign held an event at North Carolina Central University in Durham on Tuesday.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts held an event at South Carolina State University on Wednesday, days before the South Carolina primary.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen as many candidates, the ones who are still in it, making that big a focal point because they understand the power of the African-American vote, which is very, very important,” said Harry L. Williams, president of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, a member organization for historically black colleges. “But going to the campuses because those campuses represent the heart of the African-American community sends another positive message that these schools are important to the country.”
The schools, many in the South, were created at a time when black students could not attend colleges with whites. Shaw University in Raleigh was the first HBCU established in the South in 1865. The Second Morrill Act of 1890 established land-grant universities in the South for black students (like North Carolina A&T State University) who had been excluded from land-grant schools created by the original Morrill Act of 1862 (like N.C. State University).
“Our schools were designed initially to educate people that look like me that could not get an education in other places,” said Rep. Alma Adams, a Charlotte Democrat. She graduated twice from N.C. A&T and taught for 40 years at Bennett College in Greensboro, both HBCUs.
There are about 100 HBCUs across the county and they enroll 10% of African American students, according to the United Negro College Fund — and 80% of black judges, 50% of black doctors and lawyers and 40% of black engineers, the Atlantic reported.
But the schools have often been underfunded compared to majority white schools.
A 2008 study found that UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State were given $15,700 per student by the state, but North Carolina A&T and Fayetteville State — both HBCUs that like the others are within the UNC System — were allocated $7,800 per student. A 2019 congressional report pointed to a chronic underfunding of HBCUs.
In 2019, Congress passed and Trump signed legislation authorizing $255 million for minority-serving institutions, including $85 million for HBCUs, each year. The FUTURE Act, which also simplified the financial aid process, came two months after previously passed funding expired and makes the money permanent on an annual basis.
“This is the first time in my adult voting life, if you will, that I can remember there ever being a conversation at this level and significantly among all candidates running for the presidency,” N.C. A&T Chancellor Harold L. Martin Sr. said.
“The mere fact that most, if not all, of these candidates are focusing on HBCUs as part of their strategy for being elected or re-election brings great visibility for our institutions. I’m excited about what that means, the message around the importance of the role of HBCUs in educating a significant portion of young people in America.”
BILLIONS FOR HBCUS
Biden, the former vice president who is counting on black voters to help him collect strong finishes in Southern states and regain his status as the race’s front-runner, has a plan to invest $70 billion in the schools. That includes $18 billion in grants to make them more affordable for students and $20 billion for research facilities.
Sanders, whose appeal with young voters has helped propel him to front-runner status in the Democratic race, wants to make all public and private HBCUs tuition-free. He’s also proposed investing $10 billion in expanding HBCU medical, dental and teacher-training graduate programs and $5 billion in infrastructure grants.
Warren would create a $50 billion fund to “ensure that spending per-student at (HBCUs) is comparable to colleges in the area,” according to her plan. Bloomberg plans to double Pell grants to $12,000, which Williams said he announced on a conference call with HBCU presidents.
Former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg calls for increasing funding to HBCUs by $50 billion to make long-term investments in faculty, facilities and student retention. Billionaire activist Tom Steyer’s plan calls for $125 billion over 10 years and the creation of an HBCU Board of Regents among other steps. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota would waive or significantly reduce the first two years of tuition for some students at HBCUs.
The attention to education and HBCUs, in particular, is being noticed.
“I think that’s really important. Most HBCUs are underfunded,” said Jadis Heslop, an 18-year-old who attended Sanders’ rally in Winston-Salem. “That’s our culture: HBCUs are held near and dear.”
Jordan Rodrigues, a 24-year-old graduate student at WSSU, said Sanders injected a “burst of hope” to all HBCU students on Thursday. As Rodrigues sees it, Sanders can deliver on his promises to provide better funding and resources for HBCUs.
As for the HBCU plans from other candidates: ”I feel like it’s a lot of sweet nothings,” said Rodrigues, of Kill Devil Hills, N.C.. “I feel as though a lot of candidates are trying to say the right thing.”
At Bloomberg’s event at N.C. Central University, campaign volunteers handed out “HBCUs CHANGE LIVES!” T-shirts from a bright blue “food truck” parked on campus. They distributed shirts, buttons and pamphlets on Bloomberg’s policies and a plan for “economic justice for Black America” to dozens of students who were in line to order barbecue, fried fish and mac and cheese from local food trucks.
The event at N.C. Central was part of a “campus mobilization effort” at 10 colleges and university campuses in North Carolina and Virginia aimed at getting students engaged in Bloomberg’s campaign ahead of Super Tuesday. The truck headed to Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill later that day and was scheduled to make stops at two other HBCUs, N.C. A&T and WSSU.
Freshman Yuri McCray and other students said the cost of college is a barrier for many people and they want to hear more about candidates’ plans like free tuition.
“That’s always in the back of your head, like you might not be able to afford college,” McCray said. “And once you do, you have all this debt that you have to pay back.”
McCray, a 19-year-old from Greensboro, will be voting for the first time and said she thinks candidates’ focus on college campuses show that they care about HBCU students. She wants candidates who will make college more affordable and address issues like the school-to-prison pipeline.
“It’s not necessarily about a nice, shiny truck showing up giving out T-shirts,” said N.C. Central senior Lyndon Bowen, a Sanders organizer. “It’s about talking to the issues that really matter to people like me.”
Bowen is from Pollocksville, a coastal North Carolina town that’s been devastated in recent years by hurricanes.
“The town that I’m from, literally half of it flooded and people will never be able to move back to those areas,” said Bowen. “The economic damage is long-lasting.”
Bloomberg volunteers fielded students’ questions about climate change, gun violence and gun safety and the burden of student loans in an effort to get them familiar with Bloomberg’s policies. They were stationed in the middle of campus to reach as many students as possible.
“We want to make sure we bring information and make it accessible to them where they are, where they live, where they go to school,” said Brian Cunningham, who’s helping with the Bloomberg 2020 campus campaign tour.
PAYING FOR COLLEGE
Several HBCUs have closed in the last 30 years with others fighting for survival. Bennett College in Greensboro temporarily lost its accreditation and Barber-Scotia College in Concord has seen its enrollment dwindle and its debt skyrocket since losing its federal accreditation in 2014.
The schools, without the hefty endowments that other schools carry, rely on enrollment. And, in a competitive higher-education environment, that means keeping pace with facilities, faculty and meaningful curriculum.
“We’re doing a lot with STEM. We’re doing a lot in a number of areas. We have to have additional funding to help support those programs, support the kind of faculty that we need. But we do need a big shot in the arm in terms of our infrastructure and technology and all of the things that go with that,” said Adams, co-chair of the Bipartisan HBCU Caucus in Congress.
Martin, the chancellor at N.C. A&T, said additional resources should be focused on primarily three areas: support for student success, institutional infrastructure and enhancing research opportunities. Student success includes financial aid, academic support and mental wellness support.
“I want to make sure that each of the presidential candidates makes a commitment to foster successful strategies — whoever is elected to the presidency — that focuses on HBCUs and the value they bring to higher education in America,” Martin said.
But students in Winston-Salem and Durham said they were concerned with the impact of student loans and the debt they’ll carry after graduating. Students at HBCUs borrow at a higher percentage and higher amounts than students at non-HBCUs, according to a UNCF study.
“Of course the schools may say, ‘We need more investment, we need to build more facilities.’ That makes sense from their perspective and their scope,” Bowen said. “But if you’re asking a student, like me, the question really is how do we alleviate the debt that I may have from going to a university and how that affects my trajectory in terms of my career and what are my economic prospects.”
Sanders’ campaign promise to make college free resonated with many students. Jaela Prunty, 18, said she supports Sanders’ views on a range of key issues, including student debt, women’s rights, immigration reform and health care.
“He wants to draw people together,” said Prunty, of Eden, N.C. “I think it’s inspiring he supports us. He notices us and wants to bring the nation’s focus to HBCUs.”
Adams said finding a way to make college more affordable is imperative.
“You don’t want your kids to have to come home and live in your basement or live in an apartment just because they can’t make it because they’re saddled with debt. Education is expensive, but I think we’ve got to find a way to make it affordable for young people,” said Adams, who has endorsed Biden.
“If we can forgive some of these big corporate folks, what about these young people that want to contribute to our economy at some point? To be able to invest in a home, to be able to do all the things we struggled to do but made a way to do it. We’ve got to really look at the cost of education, and I think the government can really step in and make things a little bit easier for these young people.”
NOT JUST DEMOCRATS
Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, and Rep. Mark Walker, a North Carolina Republican, hosted the fourth annual HBCU Fly-In event on Thursday in Washington. The event was started as way to get HBCU leaders face-time with members of Congress.
“How is it that these folks haven’t had a chance to come and share what their issues are?” said Walker, co-chair of the HBCU Caucus. His wife is a two-time graduate of Winston-Salem State.
The school leaders that first year came armed with requests and saw an opportunity to make bipartisan inroads.
“We came in with some really big ideas about how to support HBCUs and what I can say is that the Congress and this administration listened to what we had to say and there are results associated with that in terms of financial results,” Williams said.
Chief among them were the extension of Pell Grants into summer months, making it easier for students to complete their degrees, and the FUTURE Act. Williams said 75% of HBCU students receive Pell Grants.
Trump signed an executive order on HBCUs on Feb. 28, 2017. He said HBCUs would be a “priority” in his administration. His administration also canceled repayment for four schools that took out loans after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005.
“You gotta be practical. You can’t just throw out numbers without some real strategy. That’s the whole thing. All of these people started talking about putting these billions of dollars up because they saw the president actually started doing things,” said Ja’Ron Smith, deputy assistant to the president.
“What we’re working on is very practical and working directly with these institutions. And the work that we’ve done with these HBCUs hasn’t been done before. So it’s easy to promise stuff, and then get in the driver’s seat; the left has been really good at promising in a lot of different areas. The proof is in the pudding. The president isn’t promising, he’s doing.”
The Trump campaign is working to improve its 2016 results among black voters, who voted 88% to 8% for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Trump also lost younger voters and voters with a college degree in his 2016 Electoral College victory.
Aniya Solomon, 20, said in Winston-Salem that she cast her ballot for Sanders during early voting. She said she believes in Sanders’ democratic socialist leanings — and his support for HBCUs.
As Solomon sees it, the other presidential candidates won’t be able to deliver on their campaign promises to help minority groups.
“They’re speaking,” said Solomon, of Goldsboro, “but I haven’t heard anything that reflects they’d be willing to help students of color.”
McClatchy DC White House reporter Francesca Chambers contributed reporting from Washington.
Source: The News&Observer