How HBCUs fight for survival in Trump's America

Washington Post

24-06-2025

At the start of the year, historically Black colleges and universities seemed to be in troubled waters.
Donald Trump's inauguration was quickly followed by anti-DEI executive orders that weakened civil rights protections, shuttered federal offices meant to bolster minority-owned businesses and banned books on racial equality from university libraries. The White House directed the dismantling of the Education Department, which administers $120 billion in financial aid for 10 million students annually. And Trump targeted universities such as Harvard and Columbia for political reasons, freezing or canceling nearly $3 billion in federal contracts. But rather than the intersection of these policies placing HBCUs squarely in the administration's crosshairs, they have enjoyed safe harbor.
Sen. Katie Boyd Britt (R-Alabama.) offered the latest evidence, opening her remarks at an Appropriations subcommittee hearing this month with praise: 'Alabama has more HBCUs than any other state in the nation. We are proud of the work that is done on those campuses.' Education Secretary Linda McMahon assured her that academic and budgetary support for the schools would continue — 'it's one of the promises that the president made.' Walter Kimbrough, who is concluding his interim presidency at Talladega College in Alabama, told me recently, 'Republicans and Democrats might not agree on a whole lot of things, but historically they have agreed on HBCUs.'
Kimbrough has successfully led three such institutions over the last two decades and embodies the pragmatism that necessarily typifies most contemporary HBCU presidents. They are charged with providing a quality education despite facing funding disparities, aging infrastructure and a student body in which upward of 70 percent are eligible for Pell Grants, nearly twice the national average. Kimbrough articulated how they lack the endowments and facilities of flagship universities, making their schools far more vulnerable should the federal government direct its ire at them. 'Let the Ivy League have this fight for now,' he said, adding, 'We need to survive.'
These conditions put HBCUs in the odd position of having solid and long-standing bipartisan support that still results in being under-resourced and vulnerable. Today's excessively partisan politics around race and higher education further complicate matters since the same Trump administration that has reneged on promises to Black America is vital to keeping these institutions open, funded and operational. This state of play sometimes leaves them in compromising positions, whether with Republicans or Democrats.
In 2011, the Obama administration changed credit requirements for the government's parent PLUS loans, leading to $150 million in lost revenue to HBCUs and denied loans for 28,000 of their students. Kimbrough was leading Dillard University at the time, an HBCU in New Orleans of just over 1,000 students. 'This is one that for me is complicated,' he said. 'I mean, at Dillard, we lost 150 students.' But he also noted that, 'A good body of research says parent PLUS loans really do harm families, particularly Black families.' It forced these presidents to choose their institutions and students over immediate Black economic well-being — and call out the first Black president in the process.
In 2017, HBCU presidents came to D.C. to meet with then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. 'The goal was for her to hear from HBCU presidents — what are the key issues,' he explained, but the conversation was cut short, and the group was ushered into the Oval Office for a chuckling gaggle with a smiling Trump. 'We got hoodwinked on that one,' Kimbrough told me, still a little sore about the photo op. 'Look, I wasn't there for that. I needed to talk about Pell Grants with the secretary.' Today, MAGA politics is upsetting Florida A&M University, the state's largest HBCU, where Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed an unqualified loyalist to lead the institution over more experienced and vested candidates.
Because of these kinds of politics, HBCUs have always had to think more strategically and pick their spots, especially with a figure as polarizing and unpopular among Black Americans as Trump remains. And yet, amid his executive orders targeting diversity and 'wokeness' was one re-establishing the White House Initiative on HBCUs and encouraging increased private sector support. I asked Kimbrough why he thought Trump had taken this tack. 'In his first term, he had four talking points to say, 'I'm not a racist,'' he said, listing them out, ''I did criminal justice reform. I got the lowest Black unemployment. I did the opportunity zones. And I funded HBCUs.''
But on the substance, Kimbrough said Congress was far better to HBCUs than the White House: 'I think Trump has taken a lot of credit for things that he didn't actually do,' he said, noting the roles that Sens. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina) and Kamala Harris (D-California) played during his first administration in securing bipartisan buy-in and funding increases.
Even a nonchalant White House, however, still creates tenuous conditions for the nearly 100 remaining HBCUs, even if they've stayed out of Trump's sights. More than one-third of them are in exurban areas and have a median enrollment of less than 2,000 students. While overall HBCU enrollment has increased in recent years, that growth is contained to larger, well-known schools — such as Howard, Hampton, North Carolina A&T, Morgan State, for example — while smaller and rural institutions are seeing decreases. Without more support from federal and state governments, Kimbrough warned, 'I don't know how many of those schools survive in the next 20 years.'
If given an audience with Congress or the Trump administration, he would cite three things HBCUs need to do to remain safe and in good-standing nationally: a tripling of the maximum Pell Grant award; transitioning the HBCU Capital Financing program, which lends funds for infrastructure projects on campus, from a loan to a grant; and a doubling of enrollment such that 20 percent of Black undergraduates attend HBCUs instead of the current 10 percent.
In the meanwhile, HBCUs understand acutely the importance of staying away from political controversy and maintaining bipartisan support to keep their doors open and their students preparing for success. As Kimbrough put it, pragmatically, 'We don't need to mess that up.'