“These schools show why Black colleges remain a vital part of America’s higher education and set a standard for how colleges and universities of all kinds can help prepare African-American students to enter the science and technology industries,” says Lynn Huntley, SEF president.
Huntley noted that in the year 2000, 44 percent of all African-Americans receiving bachelor degrees in the physical sciences graduated from HBCUs, which make up less than three percent of the nation’s institutions of higher education. “Were it not for these Black schools, located mostly in the South,” Huntley stated, “America would be falling much further behind in meeting its science imperatives. Yet, HBCUs as a group are desperately under-funded when compared to most traditionally White colleges, both private and public.”
SEF’s report calls for “real leadership” among private and public donors to support the Black colleges’ role in STEM education. “The current trend of inadequate support, if continued, will marginalize and progressively weaken the contribution that HBCUs presently make to enlarging the Black presence in the STEM fields…. The nation must find a way to do a better job of developing its most precious treasure – its human capital. Our future depends on it,” the report concludes.
For further information, go to www.southerneducation.org
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