I don’t want to derail the current thread discussing HBCUs, but some of you seem knowledgeable about them, and I’d love to hear your thoughts.
I’m Af Am, and when I was applying to college (over 20 yrs ago), my family greatly discouraged me from applying to HBCUs saying it would make it more difficult to find employment.
However, we had a friend over last night who said that HBCUs have a reputation for going out of their way to make sure top students succeed and graduating from an HBCU greatly improves admission chances for top grad schools.
My son’s stats make him competitive for merit scholarships at Tuskegee and Howard so I am thinking we should consider these schools more carefully. The other schools my son is considering are in state publics (Texas) and a few public schools in border states.
For those of you with knowledge of or experience with HBCUs, what are the pros and cons?
I have two colleagues whose daughters went to HBCUs - I don’t see the downside of it if your son is open to it. At least I have never heard anything from either colleague about having trouble finding jobs afterwards.
@jazzymomof7 My wife and I both went to HBCUs and I have taken official tours of both Tuskegee and Howard in the last 7 months. Tuskegee was a school that was big on its history and has a good sized campus (not small, but could walk from one end of the campus to the other in about 20 minutes max. They allow freshmen to have cars on the campus because it is a pretty secluded campus. Class sizes seemed to be manageable in almost all cases. My daughter decided against applying only due to being away from anything besides the actual campus. The Howard visit came in late May and the campus looked much better than I remembered from 20 years ago. The neighborhood around Howard has change greatly in those 20 years (underwent gentrification). Howard also featured its history (home of most of the 1st chapters of several fraternities and sororities) and many famous alumni. Howard ended up being my daughter’s number 1 choice after that day. Howard has a train station that can get you around the city pretty close to campus. Howard’s campus has an unbalanced girl to guy ratio Almost 2 girls to 1 guy ratio from what my niece (she is a freshman at Howard) has seen. All HBCUs tend to have struggles when it comes to their administrative issues (financial aid late, late on some deadlines) which drive some crazy. Like your son, my daughter’s test scores and GPA make her eligible for full ride scholarships but just be aware Tuskegee and Howard’s GPA requirements to keep scholarships (most are at a 3.3). Also be aware that for some majors (mainly the sciences) the equipment will probably not match any state institutions or well off private schools. Biggest Pros are with the family away from home that can be built at a HBCU (I am still close to my college crew and it has been 20 years along with a built in network)and they tend to have smaller class sizes which makes it easier to talk to professors. Good luck in you school search
^ That GPA requirement is probably your top concern. @jazzymom Many tech students hover around 3.3 and dip below. It’s always sad here when a hardworking STEM kid has to switch out of that major or lose the scholarship. I really wish they would lower that to a 3.1. or 3.0.
Well, I’m a big believer in loving a school that loves you back. BUT…I’ve been doing some research on those schools and I think he can do better. Howard is on probation by the accreditation board. Same with Tuskegee. That would be a deal killer for me, even with a scholarship. If accreditation were lost at any time his degree and all of his accomplishments would be worthless. There are lots of great Texas schools that will offer a scholarship. Texas State and UTSA offer great partial scholarships for good rankings and high SAT scores. That would be the best value by far. If he wants to go out of state Oklahoma and Oklahoma State offer good nonresident tuition waivers depending on his scores.
@coolguy40 Isn’t it Howard’s Physical Therapy program that is on probation, not the school itself? Tuskegee’s probation was lifted July 2017. But I certainly understand having concern that those issues might circle back around during the time one’s child might be there.
I don’t see much of a downside for a student at say, Howard or Morehouse. They are very good universities period, and the history there is a plus too. I’d look carefully at each unis financial condition, some are stressed. But Delaware State or Clark Atlanta just are not that good, and the quality of the student body will reflect that.
Ultimately it will come down to fit, and what your student wants to study. You have 2 amazingly good unis in TAMU and UT-Austin, and recruiting is going to be better your son wants to stay in Texas.
You will have to weigh if saving $60-80K in tuition is worth it. It may not be depending on your finances, the inconvenience of travel, and the quality of the programs at the schools your son is admitted to. If he is a stellar student, I’d encourage your to look at private schools as well where URM status is highly desirable.
Friends who have attended HBCUS and friends who have kids at them (the 2 you mention plus Morehouse ) have said that being in an environment where they don’t have to think about being AA is hugely liberating, so part of the decision may be the other schools you’re looking at as well as how your son feels about the environment at those. (These friends strongly encouraged their kids to consider schools that had large AA populations, not just HBCUs).) I can’t comment on the quality of these schools firsthand, but the grads I know seem to have been well-supported.
We live in a predominantly white area, so the freedom from being in the minority (where there were always some majority jerks) may have mattered more to them than it may to your son, but in their case, it was a pretty big draw. They are all still in touch with college friends, so my sense is that the community is tight.
I would not worry about perceptions but I would investigate academic quality as it sounds like your S will have options.
All i can add is a personal anecdote but my younger S (a college freshmen) met up with a friend of his over the Christmas break who just finished his first semester at Howard in DC. He’s a kid who had many options. He seemed – among all of my kid’s friends – to be the one happiest with his choice. So there’s that.
I read an article last year about the high number of students at HBCU who lose their scholarships because they didn’t meet the gpa requirement. The NAACP was trying to help out to keep the kids enrolled, but losing a big merit scholarship can really screw up the options for second year and cause panic if transfer deadlines have passed.
I have never met an HBCU grad that didn’t love their undergrad experience. It’s a very unique experience with huge value for African American students. The administrations do tend to be very disorganized, however. Top Howard, Morehouse, and Spelmam grads are highly sought after by employers. Overall, they are great options for African-American students looking for that strong sense of community and history in addition to a good education. My high stats D preferred the PWIs, but I would have happily supported her attending either Howard or Spelman.
Along these lines, it would be interesting to see if there is any significant difference between Florida State and Florida A&M engineering graduates’ career destinations after graduation. The engineering education is the same in the joint engineering division that these two schools have, so any differences in career destinations would be due to factors other than the actual quality of the engineering education.
My doctor went to Howard. She loved it there and raves about the school. She had a great experience there. I don’t know anything about the pros and cons of going to a HBCU, though.
Howard used to have full tuition to full ride scholarships with renewal GPAs ranging from 3.0 for the full tuition scholarship to 3.3 and 3.5 for the larger ones, but those scholarships are no longer listed on its web site.
Florida A&M’s full tuition scholarship requires only a 3.0 GPA to renew, but one of its renewal conditions is not changing one’s major.
Prairie View A&M’s full ride scholarship requires a 3.2 GPA to renew.
Although both 3.5 and 3.0 begin with a 3, the .5 versus .0 can make a huge difference in attainability. A 3.5 minimum basically means that the student must grade-grub like a pre-med and avoid taking any academic risks at all. A 3.0 minimum is more likely to be comfortably achievable by the students who earn the top-end merit scholarship at the college.
I was concerned about my D’s 3.5 GPA scholarship renewal (not at an HBCU) and talked to many about it. I talked to a number of my friends who are HBCU grads (including Howard) as well as those with current students at my D’s school and other schools with the same requirement and everyone assured my that it’s very attainable for a diligent student, no grade grubbing necessary. You have to know your student as to whether it’s risky or not.
If your daughter wants to work for any of the Big Four or other top firms in accounting, investment banking or business, she should do some research on the quality of the accounting program at each specific school. Big accounting and other professional firms are looking for certain technical skills and have lists of colleges they recruit from. Some firms won’t even hire grads from schools that aren’t on the list. I’m not with a Big Four firm any more, but when I was none of the HBCUs had accounting programs that were strong enough to get an applicant hired other than through one of the diversity initiatives, which had their own issues.
If you were to just ask a firm “would you hire a grad from an HBCU”, the answer would be “of course!” And that wouldn’t be a lie. The firms are large enough that somewhere in the US there will be a grad from most every college; but the reality is that as a student looking for a career at those types of firms, graduating from a program that the firms don’t actively recruit from effectively means it’s extremely difficult to get a job there and if you do, your lack of technical skills may make it harder to be successful. If it were my daughter, I’d want to know that any accounting program she was considering was highly regarded and that top firms actively recruit there other than just as part of their diversity initiatives. One way to tell might be to look at the list of employers for the last few graduating accounting classes. At top schools, most of the accounting grads will have gone to the top firms. At lower tier schools, only a few will have gone to top firms indicating it’s not a strong program and the top firms are only cherry picking a few of the top students to boost minority hiring.
Another important consideration is the school’s pass rate for the CPA exam. CPA pass rates can be a good indicator of the quality of the program. It would stink to go through an accounting program only to not be able to pass the CPA without extensive outside work. Before choosing a program, do some research about current CPA pass rates and compare those to other schools.
Different people have different outlooks on what they want to get (or have their children get) out of college, so our approach may differ. I grew up poor, so for me college was technical training and a key way to climb to higher income levels; while it was important not to be miserable, things like the “college experience” and “fit” were secondary to getting the absolute best quality education I could to allow me to have the best career opportunities possible. Using that criteria, I wouldn’t have considered studying accounting at a HBCU just because at that time the quality of the accounting programs weren’t at the same level as PWIs. That may have changed and is worth looking at. But if it hasn’t changed and the accounting programs don’t have top notch CPA exam pass rates and/or aren’t highly regarded, I’d either look at other colleges if I wanted to be in accounting/business or if going to an HBCU was most important I’d look at other majors where the HBCU programs were strong and offered top quality.
@milee30 Was this directed at me? How long ago did you work at a Big 4? Doesn’t sound recent.
In any event, my D does not attend an HBCU; she attends a target school and is a top student who would do well and have good job prospects coming out of any school.