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Lack of options, lack of alternatives, call it what you will. It has less to do with UDC being a HBCU and more to do with the only alternatives being private and OOS public colleges.
Many students have no desire to attend college in the city they’ve always lived in – approximately 2/3 of freshmen are enrolled in four-year colleges more than 50 miles from home, according to the most recent CIRP/HERI survey, and approximately 1/2 attend colleges more than 100 miles away. If you grew up in Raleigh, you can go to UNC Asheville or UNC Wilmington to move hours away to the mountains or beach while still getting in-state tuition. Not so for those in DC. The DCTAG program helps mitigate that.