UNCF – the United Negro College Fund – the nation’s oldest and most successful minority education assistance organization, called for national action to guarantee that minority and low-income students get to go to college and graduate. The UNCF policy agenda was outlined in “The ABC Agenda for Higher Education,” which UNCF President and CEO Dr. Michael L. Lomax announced at a breakfast hosted for the presidents of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and members of Congress, as part of the 2008 National HBCU Week Conference in Washington DC. Lomax also highlighted a study recently released by the National Science Foundation (NSF), which showed that HBCUs outperform other colleges when it comes to producing African Americans who go on to earn doctoral degrees in science and engineering.
The NSF study, Lomax said, “means that the schools that produced Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Thurgood Marshall are still attracting the best and brightest young African-American students, and giving them the kind of education that enables them to earn doctoral degrees in the most demanding and in-demand fields.”
The UNCF Agenda calls for action in three areas: Access and Affordability; Building Educational Capital; and Community Engagement. “If ever there was a time to push for what our students and colleges need this is it,” Lomax said. He pointed out that the nation will inaugurate a new president on January 20, the day after the Martin Luther King birthday recognition. “This is the time,” he said, “to set the goals against which we can measure what we can accomplish starting next January.”
Founded in 1944, UNCF has led efforts to ensure access to higher education for minorities by raising more than $3 billion and graduating over 350,000 students. Annually, UNCF enables over 60,000 minority students to work towards achieving a college education. Although tremendous progress has been made over the past 64 years, the battle has not been won and there are significant opportunities to increase our nation’s competiveness through education.
Now, more than ever, [when] the American economy is demanding a more diverse and better educated workforce, many minority and urban communities continue to lag behind in providing opportunities for post-secondary education. According to projections by the U.S. Census Bureau, between now and 2050, African Americans and Hispanics will grow from about 25 percent to nearly 40 percent of the working-age population, and will account for more than 90 percent of total growth in that age range. But as of 2005, only 25 percent of African Americans held at least an associate’s degree compared with 38 percent of non-Hispanic whites and 56 percent of Asians. These disparities are widening over time. For every 100 African Americans and Latinos entering 9th grade in 2001, the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education estimates that fewer than 10 earn a post-secondary degree after graduating from high school.
HBCUs have historically served a predominantly low-income, minority student population. Yet, HBCUs continue to educate and graduate African-American students at higher rates than other colleges and universities and with few resources. As legislators begin to develop and implement policy on higher education, UNCF’s ABC Agenda is a blueprint that will aid and guide Congress in securing resources that will enable HBCUs to continue to produce our nation’s future leaders, and a workforce that will be able to expand our position in the global economy.
