Universities are having a tough time under the second Trump administration.
From elite private schools like Harvard and Columbia to state schools and community colleges, the nation’s institutions of higher learning are on high alert about cuts to federal funding and grants and even, in the case of Columbia, threats of stripping the university’s accreditation status.
Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are no exception. These approximately 107 schools — public and private schools, big research institutions, and small liberal arts colleges — make up only 3 percent of the country’s colleges and universities, but they enroll 10 percent of all Black students and produce almost 20 percent of all Black graduates.
President Donald Trump pledged “to promote excellence and innovation” at HBCUs in an April executive order, as he did in his first term. But soon after issuing his executive order, the White House announced funding cuts to Howard University, the nation’s second-ranked HBCU.
Against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s assault on the Department of Education and diversity initiatives across the government (and private sector), the move has prompted concern among many Black academic leaders about the sustainability of their schools.
Mark Brown, president of Tuskegee University in Alabama, joined Today, Explained guest host Jonquilyn Hill to share his perspective on how Black universities — especially those in Republican-controlled states — can navigate the uncertainty of this administration.
The university was founded by Booker T. Washington in 1881. US News & World Report ranked it No. 3 among HBCUs overall, tied with Florida A&M University.
Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.
In his first term, Trump touted his support of HBCUs. This term, he’s been leading the crusade against DEI practices and cutting federal funding to education. Do things feel dramatically different for you in terms of policy on HBCUs this time around?
So you used the term “feel.” Some measurable things would be the White House initiative on HBCUs. We’ve not seen all of the execution of that, but that’s where I think you’ll find measurable results. The president has publicly said, as has the secretary of education, that they are supportive of historically Black colleges and universities.
We have done quite a bit to make sure everybody understands something. HBCUs are not diversity, equity, and inclusion universities, nor have we ever been. We are merit-based schools. Anybody can apply to come to Tuskegee, and if they qualify, they can come. And so it is confusion if we are associated with the pattern of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Having said that, if someone wrote in the federal government a grant, and that grant said that we are specifically looking at a particular subgroup under the category of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the decision is that across not just HBCUs but the educational spectrum, those grants have to be pulled back, then HBCUs would be impacted.
Let me give you an example. We have work that we do with University of Alabama at Birmingham. And it is on cancer research — cervical, prostate, those kinds of cancers, specifically. It deals with the genealogy of it. In other words, the grant provides the payroll, or a good portion of the payroll, so that we can hire the best researchers to come to Tuskegee and do that research using samples. And it’s important because the morbidity rates of certain cancers are far greater in our region and our area than they are in others.
So if the person writing the grant specifically targeted an area under the category DEI, It wouldn’t matter if we were UAB, which is a PWI [predominantly white institution], or if you’re the partner, Tuskegee, on the other end. If you had that broad category swath, you would impact us both, and it does.
I want to make sure — is it a matter of policy, or is it a matter of just pure confusion? We have to work all of that out.
Is there a consensus among Black academic leaders right now? Are you at all anxious about the future of HBCUs? Or are you feeling more optimistic because of Trump’s statements of support right now?
Let me reframe it in my way of looking at this. Here’s what people in higher education ought to be concerned about, and I believe they are. There is a budget, and the House of Representatives has submitted it to the Senate for action. There are reductions in things like [student] loans. There are reductions in the way that you use Pell Grants — people who would be eligible, income levels, those kinds of things. There are policies like risk sharing as it relates to defaulted loans over time that ought to concern schools that service students in need.
And here’s what I mean: Nine out of 10 students at historically Black colleges and universities have some form of federally assisted financial aid. Access to education will be impacted by that legislation. Anybody paying attention, though, would be concerned.
But I want to be careful about one thing. What is the issue? Is the issue that we’re at HBCUs? Or is the issue poverty? In other words, I want to make sure we frame it the right way. Because if I’m at Georgia Tech, depending on a Pell Grant and a Parent PLUS loan to go to grad school to get a doctorate in engineering, I’m just as impacted if I’m down here trying to get a doctorate in engineering at Tuskegee.
Like you said, most students at HBCUs rely on Pell Grants or some form of federal aid. What happens if access to those resources changes? What happens to the students? What happens to the universities?
Here’s what happens. In 2011, the policy was to change access to what we typically call the Parent PLUS loan across the country, not just to any particular demographic — 3 to 4 percent immediate reduction in enrollment across HBCUs. Access went down. That’s evidence. At the same time, across the country, enrollment went up. I’m not saying it was targeted. I’m talking about the outcome.
So if you reduce access to those programs, you’re going to reduce access to students’ ability to go to college. And I’ll take that just a little bit further. So, how do we fill the gap?
One way is to get an endowed scholarship. The wealth of a university is based on the endowment to some degree. If you take the HBCU endowments, and you add them all up — all of ’em — you will have less of an endowment than if you added up Brown University.
Now this is not a criticism. I’m happy for the students at Brown University. I’m just trying to tell you the difference in the wealth that makes the impact far greater for a portion of society.
A lot of HBCUs, including yours, are in states where Republicans hold the purse strings. I’m curious how you navigate that.
Education is politically neutral. I believe that. Education should be politically neutral, and I think statesmen would see it that way.
Here is my point. We produce chemical engineers. We produce electrical engineers. We have an aviation science program. The nation is short on aviators. The plane doesn’t know if you’re Republican or Democrat. The plane just knows that a qualified person has filled that need, which has an economic impact to this state.
I take what you mean that a lot of this education stuff should be neutral, should be gender-neutral, should be race-neutral. But I often wonder if it is that way in practice. The disparities come from somewhere. I wonder how you navigate that.
I navigate that by making sure the framework of our discussions are the same: What is the economic impact of our state? Because I can have that discussion with anybody. The way you navigate this is in capability — capability, outcome, and performance. That is what I want to drill into everybody at Tuskegee University. Did the student get an internship? Did they get experience? Did they graduate?
Dr. Brown, you strike me as — I think a word I would use to describe you is very pragmatic, the way you approach things. And I think a lot of higher education institutions are trying to figure out the best approach to securing funds under this particular presidential administration. How do you think about these things and approach it?
I would suggest, the approach we ought take with this administration, any other administration, is that we are an economic engine that creates social and economic mobility for this country. And we take greater risk in doing so, and that should be recognized. That’s the approach that we take.
And I don’t think the approach is unique to Tuskegee, you know. I could say that my friends in Huntsville, Alabama, are doing the same thing, at Alabama A&M. My friends at the Morehouse School of Medicine — everybody should want the Morehouse School of Medicine to be successful. Everybody should want the Howard University School of Medicine to be a success. Everybody should want Claflin to be successful, not just South Carolinians, but everybody.
I think we live in a great country that can be greater just like any other country, but we’re a part of it. And we’re part of the greatness. And so HBCUs are a part of the greatness. And I think we need to continue to make sure everybody understands that.
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