I feel very conflicted about HBCUs, including how I have mentioned some of them on this forum. Many HBCUs have very generous merit scholarships available. They likely have done that because they are wanting to attract and reward the caliber of students that meet their scholarship criteria. As HBCUs, their mission, unofficially at least, is to provide a supportive academic haven for black students that hasn’t always been available to black students at HWCUs. That leads me to a few qualms:
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How is the enrollment of non-black students impacting students who are attending HBCUs because they want that safe space and feel that increasing numbers of others (particularly white students) starts to threaten that environment? (And yes, I know how people would react if I flipped the races around in that sentence, but the history of mistreatment between the dominant and minority races makes it a different situation, in my book.)
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Why are HBCUs usually only mentioned/recommended if a student needs significant merit aid? If we’re mentioning the HBCUs, then I think it’s problematic if we’re only recommending them for their financial benefits. But because of #1, I am hesitant about who I recommend HBCUs to. I’ve posted a question related to this in the HBCU forum, but there haven’t been many responses which leads me to still feeling conflicted.
Edited to add the link to the other thread: Non-Black Students at HBCUs