HBCUs -- the Best Producers of Black Graduates in STEM

Using data from the IPEDS Data Center, this note demonstrates that the HBCU community continues to be a more effective producer of black STEM graduates at the undergraduate level than the nation's non-HBCUs taken as a whole. To be more specific, HBCUs are almost twice as productive as non-HBCUs with regards to black female graduates in STEM and more than five times as productive of black female STEM graduates as the for-profit institutions that have enrolled substantial numbers of black undergraduates in recent years

Why Are HBCUs Still Needed? -- Part IV

Keepers of the Dream
This is my fourth attempt to address this question, and each version has been more pessimistic than the last as to the likelihood that the non-HBCUs in the integrated mainstream of U.S. higher education will close the persistent academic achievement gaps -- in retention rates, graduation rates, GPAs, participation in STEM fields, etc -- between their black and non-black students. (For example, see The Education Trust's May 2012 report "Replenishing Opportunity in America") The persistence of these gaps becomes ever more ominous as the percentage of black students enrolled in non-HBCUs rises to 90 percent and beyond.

HBCUs vs. FPCUs in the Great Recession

A. Context

This blog continues the discussion begun in a previous blog, "HBCUs in the Great Recession" -- a pessimistic glance at the the negative impact of the Great Recession on the future of the colleges and universities that have provided African Americans with their the most significant opportunities for higher education in times past, i.e., the HBCUs.