The raw number of Black men attending HBCUs has fallen to its lowest number in nearly 50 years, and administrators at HBCUs are starting to take notice of this concerning trend.
According to NPR, currently, Black men make up only 26% of enrolled students at HBCUs, a significant drop from the 38% they comprised in 1976.
Per analysis from the American Institute for Boys and Men, the decline in Black male attendance at HBCUs is affected by a myriad of factors.
As their study states, “This decline in Black male students is influenced by factors such as inadequate K-12 preparation, a lack of Black male teachers, and financial barriers both individually and institutionally.”
NPR’s Joanna Summers talked to Calvin Hadley, an assistant provost for Academic Partnerships and Student Engagement at Howard University, about the university’s problems.
Hadley, a graduate of the university where he now works, told Summers that he noticed the disparities in male and female enrollment during his undergraduate education at Howard.
“I’m a Howard alum, and so I remember, as a student, the numbers were also pretty stark at that time. I think we were around 33-34% when I was a student between 2004 and 2008. Now, as you announced in your introduction, Howard University is around 25% male total,” Hadley said.
He continued, “And I think recent statistics said (Howard is) around 19% Black male. And so that is felt on campus, that is felt, I think, in our social clubs, it’s felt on the yard. And I think many of our male students have commented that in some of their classes, they’re the only male in their class.”
Hadley continued, indicating his concern. “At every educational institution, we want a diversity of experience. And so when you don’t have as many males in the classroom, that diversity of experience is significantly impacted. It gets even more scary when we trace it forward, right? I think we’re dealing with some really unique statistics right now. Black males are graduating at a much lower rate than Black females.”
Hadley also indicated that this problem is not limited to HBCUs.
“And so this drop in the past decade has been seen more drastically. But the reality is, this is not a Howard problem. This is not an HBCU problem. This is not a PWI problem. This is an American education problem.”
Hadley also pointed out that compared to the Black male applicants to Howard, the number of Black women who applied to the university far outstripped even the significant increase in applications that Black men filed in the 2022-2023 academic year.
Hadley closed the interview with a direct appeal to Black men to come to Howard after pointing out that Black men are being left behind in American society and are potentially negatively impacting their future families because of a lack of a college education.
“You attend an HBCU for an education and not a degree, and as an assistant provost, that’s not a popular thing to say. The education that you receive in an HBCU transcends the classroom experience. It transcends the relationship that you have with your professor. The education exists in between the lines of the pages. HBCUs inundate you with the sense of belief. We talked about the importance of that belief on the front end, the belief gap that exists in K through 12,” Hadley stated.
He concluded his case, “HBCUs are created to instill you with the belief that you can be even larger than you can dream. Howard University and the HBCU community has provided me — and many other people, like our vice president — with the sense that I am enough. I can be successful academically. But my world is not simply academics. I can be enough, and I can contribute to this society, in this space, in a way that allows me to feel whole and allows me to contribute to something much larger than myself. The HBCU community needs you. And so when I’m talking to that young man in 2024: Come, because we need you. Come because you’re important. Come because without you, our community is hurt.”
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