Kei’Yanii Dawson goals of attending a traditionally Black school the place she will take courses and interact in campus life with extra college students who appear like her.
But Dawson, a junior at a majority-White non-public highschool in San Francisco, stated that may seemingly imply going to highschool removed from residence and taking up extra debt for housing and out-of-state tuition.
However, a rising motion to increase the presence of HBCUs into extra communities exterior the South might quickly give college students like Dawson simpler entry to a Black school.
Officials in cities equivalent to Boston and San Francisco say they’re actively working to carry satellite tv for pc campuses of HBCUs to their communities, hoping to strengthen the pipeline for Black college students to pursue larger training and to develop and diversify their native economies.
“I feel like if there was a satellite (HBCU) here in San Francisco, it would just be so much easier,” Dawson stated. “An education coming to me instead of me going so far, there’s definitely more benefits from that, money-wise.”
Advocates for HBCUs insist these proposals are essential because the Trump administration targets variety, fairness and inclusion applications at predominantly White establishments, equivalent to Harvard University, and as Black college students search faculties the place they really feel included and celebrated.
President Donald Trump has decried DEI initiatives as “illegal and immoral discrimination.”
Earlier this yr, the Trump administration proposed a 2026 fiscal yr finances that may lower $64 million in funding for Howard University, the nation’s solely federally chartered HBCU. The National Institutes of Health additionally canceled a $16.3 million grant for Florida A&M University’s pharmacy college as a part of Trump’s effort to finish DEI applications.
US District Judge Stephanie Gallagher on Thursday struck down two administration actions that threatened to chop federal funding from instructional establishments with DEI applications, ruling the Education Department violated the regulation, according to The Associated Press.
Despite his administration’s assaults on DEI, Trump signed an executive order in April supporting HBCUs.
“This order will continue the work begun during my first Administration to elevate the value and impact of our Nation’s HBCUs as beacons of educational excellence and economic opportunity that serve as some of the best cultivators of tomorrow’s leaders in business, government, academia, and the military,” it learn.
HBCUs had been first established in the mid to late 1800s, when authorized segregation within the South prevented Black college students from enrolling in present schools and faculties within the North imposed quotas on the variety of Black college students who might attend. During this era, HBCUs turned the first technique of offering a university training to Black folks. Today, nearly all of HBCUs are situated within the South.
Keith Lezama, CEO and founding father of Building Bridges Education — a nonprofit devoted to offering New England college students with entry and pathways to HBCUs — stated he helps the growth of Black schools. He stated many Black households in communities with out HBCUs will not be conscious of their influence.
HBCUs “are a movement that has allowed access when access wasn’t allowed,” Lezama stated. “A movement that instills a sense of pride, resilience that produces amazing leaders in our communities and across the world. To know many of these institutions do this without the same resources (as predominantly White colleges), is something that can be seen as a national model of what excellence looks like in education.”
In June, Boston City Councilor Brian Worrell filed a listening to order proposing the institution of an HBCU satellite tv for pc campus in Boston. He stated throughout a June 25 city council meeting that Boston is thought for being a university city, “but we do not have a single HBCU.”
The closest HBCUs to Boston are Cheyney University of Pennsylvania and Lincoln University, each greater than 300 miles away.
HBCUs, Worrell stated, are identified for producing a better proportion of low-income, first-generation Black school graduates than majority-White establishments.
“If we are serious about building a diverse workforce here in Boston in tech, health care, education, government, then we need to be just as serious about the pipelines that people get here,” Worrell stated.
Establishing a satellite tv for pc campus is a prolonged course of that would take years to finish, advocates say.
Worrell stated it’s not but clear if or when the HBCU would open in Boston, and officers haven’t but determined which college town will companion with.
Boston is internet hosting a listening session on August 26 to permit neighborhood members to share their ideas on what they need to see in a satellite tv for pc campus, he stated. Worrell will contemplate their suggestions in his proposal for the college.
He additionally hopes to work with HBCUs on an initiative that may enable college students at native establishments to switch credit to the satellite tv for pc college when it opens.
Officials from Huston-Tillotson University, a small non-public HBCU in Austin, Texas, say they’re additionally working to determine an off-campus educational website in San Diego.
California has the most important out-of-state scholar enrollment at Huston-Tillotson, stated Archibald Vanderpuye, the college’s provost and vp of educational affairs. The college is situated about 1,300 miles from San Diego.
“Our partners are looking at ways to increase access to and completion of college degrees among underrepresented minority students by providing them with meaningful HBCU experiences,” Beverly Downing, affiliate provost at Huston-Tillotson University, stated in a press release.
Downing stated there may be rising curiosity amongst college students and households in increasing the college to California.
“We started getting a lot of calls and getting requests for a presence there so that the students would have a choice of whether to come out to Texas or to take courses (in California),” Downing stated.
The college plans to launch the off-campus educational website in San Diego with a enterprise administration program in spring 2026, Downing stated.
Plans for the San Diego location are underway and the college is required to acquire quite a few approvals, together with for the off-campus educational website plan and accreditation, Downing stated.
In San Francisco, officers are additionally in lively discussions about bringing an HBCU satellite tv for pc campus to town, Charles Lutvak, spokesperson for Mayor Daniel Lurie, stated.
Lutvak stated he was unable to supply particulars on a timeline or which Black schools are in discussions with metropolis leaders.
The conversations comply with town’s launch of the Black 2 San Francisco initiative final yr, which seeks to “create a satellite campus partnership with several HBCUs, including a physical location in San Francisco, and a full suite of academic and professional programming.”
Former Mayor London Breed said last year that an HBCU campus in San Francisco would “boost our downtown and our economy, while bringing new minds and ideas to grow within our world-renowned culture of innovation.”
Harry Williams, president and CEO of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, stated growing satellite tv for pc areas for HBCUs throughout the nation will assist improve the variety of Black Americans within the center class.
HBCUs produce 70% of Black medical doctors and dentists, 50% of Black engineers and 35% of Black attorneys, according to the United Negro College Fund.
Williams stated HBCUs have larger retention and commencement charges amongst Black college students.
Black college students can even expertise a way of belonging and tradition at HBCUs that they might not discover at predominantly White establishments, the place DEI and affirmative motion are underneath assault, Williams stated.
“Being in a place where you are wanted, that’s the key,” he stated. “These institutions were created for African Americans.”
Some folks, nonetheless, oppose increasing HBCUs to different communities.
“You want to attend an HBCU, then move to a city where the school history and culture already exist,” one user posted on X. “Our resources are stretched enough. Plus, our cities depend on the migration of students from the North.”
“One of the lures of HBCUs is the historical part and putting a satellite campus somewhere random disconnects that,” another user posted on X. “Especially in Boston.”
Brandon Graham, founder and CEO of Our HBCUs Matter Foundation, a nonprofit devoted to instructional programming for highschool and HBCU college students, stated he believes it is going to be difficult for satellite tv for pc campuses to duplicate the connections and experiences college students obtain on an HBCU’s primary campus. However, he stated there are inventive methods to realize this.
HBCUs should “ensure that you cultivate programmatic models and bring in alumni for those folks who are local to then be able to share and cultivate that synergy that you initially get on an HBCU campus,” stated Graham, a graduate of each Clark Atlanta University and Tennessee State University.
Graham stated he’s assured that HBCUs have the connections and sources to increase their attain to communities throughout the nation, simply as predominantly White establishments have performed.
“It will have positive effects on the institutional educational branding, on its financials, as well as on its ability to cultivate a very diverse alumni base across the country,” Graham stated. “This next level of satellite campuses is going to diversify and transform the way an HBCU education can be provided.”