“Historically Black College and University” is a term coined by the federal government to define a HBCU as a school of higher learning whose principal mission was and is the education of African Americans and was accredited and established before 1964. There are 100 HBCUs across America right now and some of their main missions is to educate their students with a college education but also tutelage in black culture and history. It was my decision to commit to getting my education from the first HBCU in America, Cheyney University. I will be exploring non–black students reasons for attending HBCUs and the benefits they receive from staying in attendance.
As a product of an interracial marriage, I spent my whole life surrounded by many different cultures. I thought of myself as a proverbial melting pot of cultures. I had learned about a little bit of everything as I grew and tried to put all that knowledge to use when dealing with other people. When I arrived at Cheyney, I realized that I had been overestimating how much I knew about the African American culture.
This was true for more than one form of education, not only what I would learn in the classroom, but also the social behaviors that I observed and picked up while making new friends. Most students attending HBCUs are black, a portion of those students will come into college with knowledge from their families on their culture, and another portion will come with no knowledge at all. The non–black students in attendance will come in even more clueless than the already clueless black students. Rob Shorette summarizes this idea eloquently in an interview about his HBCU experience.
“Many aspects of my education that were supremely influential to my development, I seemed to have absorbed naturally and almost assumed it was what everyone was learning in college, such as the fact that books from authors like Toni Morrison and Zora Neale Hurston served as the primary texts in my English courses, the fact that I was hearing my classmates provide diverse African-American perspectives in every class on my schedule, the fact that I was participating regularly in discussions that challenged me to think differently about the issues of people of color, and the list goes on.”
This type of education is essential to becoming a well-rounded student. Without a good understanding of other culture's deep roots we cannot begin to understand their struggles. These lessons in cultures don’t just apply to the non-black students, everyone in attendance at a HBCU benefits from these lessons. These classes are offered at some other institutions, however, at HBCUs they are required curriculum. An example of these classes would be African American Experience in a Global Context.
As a non–black student on a campus that is 95 percent black students, I fully understand what it is like to be the minority. I have been the minority in more ways than one my whole life. Most white students, however, are not used to or comfortable with this idea. That is one of the main reasons the average HBCU lacks racial diversity, but I feel that it is important for any well-rounded individual to understand what being a minority in any sense feels like. Non–black student enrollment at HBCUs has had a slight, but noticeable increase over the past few years. This increase caused an influx of articles on this topic. JoVon McCalester, a professor at Howard University, expresses the positive effects of a white student attending an HBCU in few words.
“I think a white person attending an HBCU is a positive thing and fosters a couple of different perspectives. One, I think it gives white students a chance to be a minority and therefore the ability to be more sympathetic to minorities in society.”
This experience also helps to prepare students for the real world. In a NBC News special, Lezli Baskerville, the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education CEO, gives her opinion on the slight increase in attendance.
“Whites who attend the schools are preparing for an increasingly black and brown world if you want to know how to live in one, you can’t grow up in an all-white neighborhood, go to a predominantly white school, white cultural and social events, go to a predominantly white university and then thrive in a world that is today more black, more brown than before.”
Baskerville and McCalaster’s views on the increase in attendance serve as a good sample of most people’s opinions. Becoming a minority and having the ability to be more empathic towards minority cultures gives the student the ability to think outside of the box that they were unknowingly trapped in. As our society continues to grow we will need more people capable of thinking like that.
Here at Cheyney University, I am a student in the Keystone Honors program. This is a close-knit program comprised of a few hundred honors students most of whom are attending the university with a full ride. I know personally this scholarship was a large factor in me coming to Cheyney. Had I not been offered such a good scholarship I would have gone to a completely different school. Leaving college debt-free is a no-brainer for most potential students.
Diversity is very a very important factor for colleges. When there is a lack of diversity at any college they can get into a lot of financial trouble. State-run schools can lose portions of their funding and private institutions cannot attract all the students they need without diversity. At an HBCU to solve this problem, they offer scholarships to the students that will help fill their quotas.
“Private, historically black schools cost an average of $10,000 less per year than their traditionally white counterparts. White students are being actively recruited, and attracting them has become easier for a variety of reasons, including the offer of scholarships and lower tuitions than those paid at non-black schools”
College debt is one of the most predominate crippling debts in America. Seven out of ten college graduates leave their university with outstanding debt, the average being around $2500 than one where they are less scholarships.
“Howard offered me an athletic scholarship that covered a portion of the tuition and an academic scholarship that paid for the rest. It was more money than Marymount had offered me […] it was a no brainer; I accepted the offer.”
The average HBCU has a 7-13 percent non–black student population. In this population, you will find a plethora of students with different skills and perspectives. A majority of these students will be the recipients of some substantial financial aid packages. While they are all different by these standards some things will not change. The ones who decide to continue attending an HBCU will undoubtedly be more well-rounded than their counterparts, who decided to attend a predominantly white institution.
