For a few years now, I have been debating many of my friends who attend or attended HBCUs on whether or not consolidation of these schools was a realistic option in the future.  Overwhelmingly, the response was a resounding, �NO�.  Brothers and sisters cited several strong reasons, the loss of heritage, the blow to alumni, the blending of histories that would not give either or any institution the recognition they deserve, the fact that every HBCU serves someone somewhere who may not get a chance at a college education somewhere else, etc.  Now to be clear, I did not attend an HBCU. I did spend several years working for the United Negro College Fund and, in particular, the Gates Millennium Scholars Program (GMS), which is administered by UNCF.  In my years working with GMS, which offers the option to attend any school in the country top African American, Native American, Alaskan Native, Asian Pacific Islander American, and Hispanic American students, I noticed that some of the top African American students were choosing Georgia Tech instead of Morehouse, American University instead of Howard, and Florida State instead of FAMU.  This was not an across the board decision, there were still young brothers and sisters that chose HBCUs instead of PWIs (predominately white institutions, yes, this is a real term).  However, you have to remember that by receiving this scholarship, which eliminated nearly all costs of an undergraduate degree, having the money to attend any school in the country was no longer a concern, meaning there was no financial comparative advantage to attending Tulane University over Xavier University in Louisiana, when under normal circumstances, there might be.

The financial piece is huge for both the student and the college as well. When a student applies to go to a school, based on things like their grades, extra-curricular activities, certain merit based awards, and their family�s financial standing, the college can choose to award that student scholarship money to attend.  However, the scholarship money that can be offered to the student is contingent upon whether or not the university has the funds in place to give those awards out.  For the most part, these dollars come from the endowments or investment strategies that colleges have in place.  It�s not rocket science to surmise that schools with larger endowments have more money to give as scholarships back to potential students.  Harvard, for example, has an endowment of $26 billion and Brown University, which has made significant strides toward reducing the amount of loans students would need to take out by offering more grants and aid has an endowment of slightly more than $2 billion.  Howard University, on the other hand, has an endowment of $400 million, while Morehouse has an endowment of over $117 million, as a comparison of scale, Stillman College has a endowment of $18 million.  Not having a huge endowment is not an indication of deft financial planning or superior leadership, it�s often the result of the degree to which alumni and their families, corporations, etc. are able to contribute.  Of course, historical and systemic racism plays a part in all of this, but that is not the focus of this discussion.

Clearly put, a top performing African American student from a low income family would generally be able to attend most PWIs with a lower debt than by attending an HBCU.  These are the cold hard economic realities of the situation.  This doesn�t have anything to do with the quality of the experience they would have in either environment, but it does speak to the amount and the duration of loan payments that could be made.

Additionally, keep in mind that colleges also, essentially, make money off of students that either pay for their education out right or do so through loans.  

These students and their families are critical to supplying the dollars that are needed to acquire and retain the best educators in their fields, build state of the art buildings with smart boards in every classroom, fund computer labs with Mac computers or in other words all the things that make impressionable 18 year olds choose one school over another.

The challenge for HBCUs is on several levels and I will use this time to discuss a few that I believe are most critical.  Starting with the students themselves, HBCUs have traditionally served students that may not receive opportunities at other institutions.  This does not mean that the student or the college is inferior, but it can mean that the student is not able to pay for their education out right and/or is not at an academic performance level where they could receive a �free-ride� to any school in the country (as a point of reference, the GMS scholarship mentioned earlier, is only available to students with a 3.3 GPA or higher).  Even applying for and receiving federal aid can be an insurmountable task for students from families that are broken, do not maintain tax return information, are intimidated by the financial aid process and for all intents and purposes only view college as something for the rich and well off.

There is a catastrophic drop-out rate for African Americans that means that many of the students that may have attended schools like Huston Tillotson University or Miles College will not even graduate from the high schools in their neighborhoods.  This means these students, along with the critical dollars they might have brought in with private scholarships, loans, and family income will not be present.

Secondly, which has been covered above, PWIs are positioned better to offer scholarships and grants to African American students that HBCUs cannot compete with for the same talent.  Student to student, Johns Hopkins University can offer more in scholarship dollars than Morgan State University can to higher performing students.  Also, in these times of seemingly endless recession (regardless of what the FED says) how many parents are going to direct their children into taking loans or relying on the family�s ability to pay for education when, in reality, the same education can be achieved, for less money, down the street?  This is an important point that students at HBCUs and PWIs need to understand; education is only as good as the effort one puts forward to get it.  Yes, there are experiences at an HBCU that a student can get that cannot be duplicated at a PWI and vice versa, however, what happens in the classroom is largely dependent on the
person sitting in the seat taking notes.

Thirdly, and far more insidious, is the growing idea that HBCUs do not have the value that they did thirty or forty years ago.  Historically, HBCUs were created to provide access to higher education to African Americans that could not receive it anywhere else.  These schools became critical to developing not only the minds of the brothers and sisters that attended but also their consciousness.  The Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) was conceived at Shaw University and a pre cursor to that organization which was called the Non Violent Action Group (NAG) began at Howard University.  That said, in a �post racial� world (or the illusion of one) where the president of the United States is of African descent, and a handful of African Americans can count themselves among the super rich and wealthy, many people within and outside of the black community are questioning the validity of HBCUs.  Indeed, many high school youth today, who will be receiving acceptance letters from various institutions of higher learning over the next few months have little understanding of the history of HBCUs, why they remain relevant today and even less understanding of the breeding ground these schools once were for brilliant minds like Thurgood Marshall, Stokely Carmichael (aka Kwame Ture) and Martin Luther King Jr.

The suggestion by elected officials in Mississippi that HBCUs should consolidate may be more of harbinger of things to come than an anomaly.  Many smaller HBCUs rely on state funding to maintain operations and in these times where many states are approaching bankruptcy, it�s not a foregone conclusion that the belt tightening will affect more and more of these institutions.

As controversial as the position is, I am suggesting that some HBCUs consolidate under their own volition. Schools that realize they are having problems recruiting students, making payments on critical bills, developing multiple majors under disciplines etc. may consider consolidation as a way to keep both schools active and ultimately, help the mission of HBCUs to continue.  This may also be a way to combine endowments and offer more aid to attending students.  This would not be the first time consolidation has happened, Clark Atlanta University is a combination of Clark College and Atlanta University and has remained a vital institution of higher learning since consolidating in 1988. I am well aware that consolidation is not an easy process; schools considering this option would have to have strong and visionary leadership as well as monumental negotiating skills.  Perhaps organizations like the United Negro College Fund or the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund could serve as arbitrators or advisers during the discussions.

History is ripe with examples of the decline and eventual dissolution of institutions and organizations created for the benefit of black people.  The Negro League is a clear example of something that was created for black people when they could not integrate with the broader society that was ultimately undone once players, owners, and fans lost sight of the league�s true value and purpose.  Even worse, there are historical instances where these organizations and institutions let ego stop them from surviving.

For some institutions, consolidation may be the only key to their long-term survival.  If in 2009 elected officials are making an argument that HBCUs should consolidate with each other, what kind of future will exist for these colleges and universities in 2019?  Will we one day wake up to find the elected officials of Virginia have decided that Virginia Union University is being consolidated into Virginia Commonwealth University?

How will history judge those who attended HBCUs and those that lead them if, incredibly, fifty years from now, they are no longer present?

BlackCommentator.com Guest Commentator Charles J. Evans is an institutionally unaffiliated culture critic and active scholar of issues pertaining to leadership as it relates to people of African descent. He blogs regularly at OtherSideofthemtn. Click here to contact Mr. Evans.