Chapter 2: Selective Historically Black Colleges and Universities: A Competitive Option

Between the 1960s and 2010s, African American college enrollment has shifted away from historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) toward predominantly White institutions (PWIs; Brown & Davis, 2001; Gasman et al., 2007). As HBCUs fight to reverse enrollment patterns and attract academically competitive high school graduates, supporters of HBCUs and the students who choose them have been increasingly scrutinized in the media despite the institutions’ longtime record of academic successes and student satisfaction (Bridges et al., 2008; Gasman et al., 2007; Kim, 2004; Outcalt & Skewes-Cox, 2002). In a particularly high-profile critique, Jason Riley (2010) of The Wall Street Journal scrutinized President Obama’s pledge of support to HBCUs, claiming that the institutions are academically inferior. Soon after the media craze surrounding Riley’s claim, the Internet community was taken over by blogs and opinion articles condemning an Atlanta teenager’s choice to attend an HBCU over several Ivy League institutions that accepted him (Rogers, 2010; Shropshire, 2010; Williams, 2010).