HBCU Facts and Statistics

Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) opened the path to higher education for Black students more than 150 years ago. Now, they enroll just under one-tenth of all Black college students and are a major driver of their socioeconomic mobility.

This report explores how many students enroll in and graduate from these institutions. It also examines how HBCUs are funded and what kinds of financial assistance students are offered to attend them.

As of 2022, there were 101 HBCUs in 19 states, the District of Columbia, and the Virgin Islands, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).^{Note Reference [1]} Nearly every state with an HBCU is in the South or Southeast. Fifty-two are public institutions, and 50 are private institutions.^[3]

In 2022, 343,682 students were enrolled in HBCUs. Between 1976 and 2022, enrollment at HBCUs increased by more than 54%.^{Note Reference [1]}

Though HBCUs previously served as the only option for Black students to receive a college education, they now serve as one of many. For the last 10 years, about 9% of all Black college students were enrolled at an HBCU.^{Note Reference [1], [5]}

As of 2022, Black students accounted for 70% of all enrolled HBCU students. Over the last 10 years, the percentage of Black HBCU students has decreased by five percentage points while the percentage of non-Black HBCU students has increased by five percentage points.^{Note Reference [1]}

Female enrollment at HBCUs has surpassed male enrollment every year since 1976. As of 2021, female students accounted for 64% of HBCU learners.^{Note Reference [1]}

The NCES does not include information about nonbinary or transgender student enrollment.

Private four-year institutions account for the majority of HBCUs, but public four-year schools enroll the largest number of students.^{Note Reference [1]}

Graduation rates among HBCU students are not as clearly reported as general graduation rates for all students regardless of institution type. But during the 2020-2021 academic year, 48,171 degrees were conferred to HBCU students.^[6] They accounted for 2% of all degrees conferred to undergraduate students in the U.S. during the year.^[7]

According to a 2017 Education Trust survey and data from NCES, Black students who attend HBCUs have an average six-year graduation rate of about 32%.^{Note Reference [2]} By comparison, as of 2021, Black students at non-HBCUs had a six-year graduation rate of roughly 44%.^[8]

Based on the survey, at institutions where 40-75% of first-year students are low-income, Black HBCU students have slightly higher graduation rates than Black students attending non-HBCUs.^{Note Reference [2]}

Some HBCUs report their graduation rates on their websites. As of 2022:

During the 2022-2023 academic year, the average total cost of attendance for on-campus students at HBCUs ranged from $26,791-$30,624.^{Note Reference [1]}

A BestColleges analysis of data obtained from the Department of Education’s data system found that during the 2021-2022 academic year, the total amount of grant aid awarded to HBCU students at 101 institutions was $551 million.^{Note Reference [1]}

Like all other institutions, government funding is an essential part of HBCUs’ revenue. However, HBCUs rely on funding more so than other institutions. In 2021, funds from federal, state, and local governments accounted for 46% of HBCUs’ total $12 billion revenue.^{Note Reference [7]} By comparison, government funding in 2021 accounted for about 39% of all institutions’ revenue.^[13]

Under federal law, 18 HBCUs are considered land-grant institutions.^[14] This status entitles them to receive the same funding per student as all other land-grant institutions. However, according to a 2022 Forbes analysis, at least 16 land-grant HBCUs have been underfunded by a total of $12.8 billion since 1987.^[15]

In March 2022, the Biden administration announced a state-by-state breakdown of funding that would be awarded to HBCUs under the American Rescue Plan. Under the plan, HBCUs received more than $2.7 billion in federal funding.^[16]