Since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that race could not be used by colleges in admissions decisions, historically Black colleges and universities have seen a surge in enrollment.
At Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, officials say the number of applications they received for first-year students increased from just over 4,900 last year to about 7,500 this year. They accepted nearly 3,500 of those students compared to about 2,000 last year.
The increase at North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro, the country’s largest HBCU, has been more dramatic. Todd Simmons, an associate vice chancellor at A&T says they received more than 42,000 enrollment applications this year, an increase of 12,000 over last year.
Simmons says this year, A&T has the largest overall student enrollment in the university’s history — 14,311 students compared to nearly 13,900 last year. Whether that increase is attributed to the Supreme Court ruling, Simmons says, “We’ve seen an additional surge in students since that ruling but it’s hard to know exactly what the impact to the affirmative action ban of the Supreme Court has been to North Carolina A&T because of a growth trend we continue to experience now goes back to 2013.”
Many education officials agree that the surge goes back a decade and increased significantly at all HBCUs after the 2020 fatal police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. But as HBCU enrollments increase, some colleges are challenged with providing sufficient housing and other support for students.
“Right now we have a 405-bed residence hall that will be finished next year and over the past several years, we’ve acquired six apartment buildings near campus to give us more housing stock to be available to our students,” Todd said.
In addition to the court’s affirmative action ruling, Todd says the interest in HBCUs is occurring because they provide a safe space for Black students at a time when race relations in this country are declining.
“All HBCUs have seen additional attention from students who want to go to places where they know they will be welcomed, accepted and nurtured,” Todd said.
