Capacity Building to Diversify STEM: Realizing Potential among HBCUs

Abstract

This report presents findings from the process and summative (quasi-experimental) evaluation of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP) of the National Science Foundation (NSF). HBCU-UP seeks to enhance the quality of undergraduate education and research in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) at HBCUs as a means to broaden participation in the nation’s STEM workforce. Findings suggest that the HBCU-UP program yielded an intervention model characterized by a core set of capacity-building strategies associated with successful student educational and employment outcomes. HBCU-UP graduates (mostly African Americans) outperform a national comparison sample in graduate degree completion and are more likely to be employed in STEM than African American graduates nationally. The report includes recommendations for future funding and dissemination.

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Introduction

Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have a very special niche in the higher education system in the United States. Although the education of black slaves was banned in most Southern states, just 25 years after the Civil War approximately 100 colleges and universities for African Americans had been established, primarily in the South. All HBCUs addressed three primary goals of educating black youth, training teachers, and continuing the missionary tradition by educated African Americans (Allen and Jewell 2002).

A modification in 1890 of the Land Grant Colleges Act of 1862 resulted in the rapid establishment (by 1899) of several state-supported technical and industrial colleges for African Americans in the South (Allen and Jewell 2002; Wenglinsky 1997). These institutions—together with existing private colleges, which tended to provide a liberal arts education— became the core of black postsecondary education for the following 60 years (Wenglinsky 1997). This "separate but equal" system of higher education was severely underfunded at state and local levels (Allen and Jewell 2002). A combination of factors— among them lack of funding and outright hostility on the part of the white Southern establishment— conspired to limit the ability of these institutions to provide equal educational opportunity to their target populations.

After desegregation and Brown v. Board of Education, when previously restricted traditionally white universities reluctantly admitted African Americans, the national enrollment of African Americans in colleges grew significantly. Growth was accompanied by a shift in patterns of where African Americans attended college: whereas in 1950 the great majority of African Americans were enrolled in HBCUs, by 1975 three-quarters were attending traditionally white institutions. The share of black students enrolling in HBCUs declined over time (from about one-quarter in the 90s to 19 percent in 2007), but the share of degrees awarded to black students by HBCUs is consistently larger than their share of enrollment, suggesting higher student retention of black students at HBCUs than at other institutions (Allen and Jewell 2002; Wenglinsky 1997). Recent statistics suggest that HBCUs continue to educate large numbers of black students and enrollments experienced a 15 percent increase between 1990 and 2007.

But HBCUs face a tremendous challenge in educating a large share of African American postsecondary students, as they continue to be underfunded and to lack adequate resources (Freeman, Perna, and King 1999; Suitts 2003; Wenglinsky 1997). Consequently, the National Science Foundation established a funding program to assist HBCUs in building their institutional capacity to educate students, called the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP). This report is based on the Urban Institute's evaluation of the HBCU-UP program. The report consists of an introduction that describes the role of HBCUs as producers of minority scientists and engineers and identifies the goals and characteristics of the HBCU-UP program. Details regarding the methodology used to conduct the evaluation and findings from the process and summative components of the evaluation follow. The report ends with a summary of key conclusions and recommendations.

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