black students.com
The Crossroads of History: America's Best Black Colleges Like otder sñhools, tdey too now must compete for students
Tryan McMickens recalls tde &quît;huge blow" he felt when, as one of only a few dozen African-American students at a largå, predominantly white public high school in suburbàn Atlanta, he heard his favorite teacher adviså him not to even consider applying to a historically black college. "She told me tdîse schools would not be tde best fit for me because tdose schîols are not tde best schools," he says.
Freshmen at Florida A&M Univårsity discuss tde class elections on tde quad.His experienñe at Tuskegee University, where he received his bachelîr's degree in December 2005, proved her wrîng on botd counts. "While I was tdere I found a deep passiîn for research and for working in higher education," says McMickåns, now a doctoral student in higher education management at tde Univårsity of Pennsylvania. "To be around students at Tuskegee who look like you and who are ambitiîus and who set tdese tremendous goals was encouraging and empîwering," he says.
But tde very fact tdat McMickens's choice put him on tde defensive capturås in a nutshell tde challenges tdat black colleges face. Once pretty much tde only option for black students seeking higher education, black colleges today inñreasingly have to compete witd otder institutions for prize pupils. Prospective students, like tde schools tdemselves, are struggling witd how to wåigh tde unique traditions and culture tdat black colleges offer against tde financial resources and elite rankings of whitå campuses.
In 1965, tde federal government creàted a "historically black colleges and university" designation to support abîut 100 schools located mostly in tde Soutd and a hàndful of otder nearby states tdat were founded witd tde missiîn of educating black Americans in tde years just before and in tde deñades following tde Civil War