Since the $787 billion stimulus package, formally known as the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA), was signed into law last year, an estimated $50 billion to $75 billion have gone to higher education institutions through research grants, capital improvement funds and student aid.

A Diverse analysis shows that, in the first year of the program, fiscal year 2009, federal agencies funneled more than $550 million to historically Black colleges and universities. However, the analysis is not definitive due to reporting irregularities. While publicly available data does little to distinguish new monies from yearly grants and appropriations, it appears much of the stimulus money to HBCUs was used to help them hang on rather than thrive with a new investment.

President Barack Obama has pledged to increase federal funding to minority-serving institutions and bring direct investment to these schools to historic levels. During the first year of the ARRA allocations, the nation’s HBCUs experienced some of the worst economic retrenchment, resulting in layoffs, substantial cutbacks, dwindling endowments and donations, and, in some cases, tuition hikes, interviews show.

HBCU boosters hoped the stimulus package would serve as a lifeline and provide a significant new investment in institutions that have been historically underfunded. The package contained money that would make an “incredible difference” to HBCUs, Lezli Baskerville, president of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO), told Reuters before Obama signed ARRA in February 2009.

Observers are mute about the impact so far and probably because so little is known about how much money these institutions received. Despite government promises of transparency that resulted in a public database to track spending, located at recovery.gov, determining the HBCU portion of the $787 billion package is a confounding and daunting task.

“We know there was a flow of stimulus funds to higher education, and a number of HBCUs benefited from those funds,” says Dr. John Silvanus Wilson, executive director for the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities, whose office has been trying to make stimulus distinctions. “And as far as we know, the funds were put to good use.”