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HBCUs experience a surge following ban on affirmative action in admissions policies

North Carolina A&T State University received an increase of 12 thousand enrollment applications this year compared to a year ago. This follows the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling banning affirmative action in admissions decisions.
North Carolina A&T State University
North Carolina A&T State University received an increase of 12,000 enrollment applications this year compared to a year ago. This follows the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling banning affirmative action in admissions decisions.

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.

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Gwendolyn is an award-winning journalist who has covered a broad range of stories on the local and national levels. Her experience includes producing on-air reports for National Public Radio and she worked full-time as a producer for NPR’s All Things Considered news program for five years. She worked for several years as an on-air contract reporter for CNN in Atlanta and worked in print as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun Media Group, The Washington Post and covered Congress and various federal agencies for the Daily Environment Report and Real Estate Finance Today. Glenn has won awards for her reports from the Maryland-DC-Delaware Press Association, SNA and the first-place radio award from the National Association of Black Journalists.