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Bachelor Level Degree Is A Rite of Passage into the Economic
Mainstream
By
Sherman
N. Miller
As the 2006 cohort of African American college students prepare to go
off to school in the fall, they will become a part of a living legacy
that was paved by groups such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
The AME
Church knew the value of a college
education to tomorrow’s Black American upward mobility in 1881 when they
started Morris
Brown
College as the
only college in the state of Georgia established by Black
Americans for Black Americans. Blacks being just a few years out of
legalized US slavery where educating the slave was forbidden, the AME
church’s vision to create a college helped to undergird the modern
African American middle and upper class experience. However, in recent
years poor Morris Brown
College business
management practices may have destroyed that dream today.
A December 10, 2002 article, Morris
Brown
College
loses accreditation, by The Associated Press/Newsday offers a
chronology of the mistakes made by the college en route to losing its
accreditation. However,
this article also intimates the existence of survival problems at
another Historically Black College.
“Morris
Brown College
was stripped of its accreditation Tuesday, a blow that will cost the
historically black school the federal financial aid most students depend
on to help pay their tuition.
“Another historically black institution,
Grambling State University
in Louisiana,
will continue on probation for another year, according to the decision
by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
“Grambling was placed on probation last year
over concerns about its confusing financial records.”
Yet HBCUs have produced many excellent American citizens. You get an
appreciation of the caliber of HBCU citizens looking at the Morris
Brown
College’s web site
welcoming message to potential students.
“Morris Brown has graduated thousands of alumni who are leaders in
government, education, business, technical fields and the professions. A
Pulitzer Prize-winning author, pilots, journalists, bank presidents,
chemists, actors, doctors, government officials and professional
athletes, all are among our graduates. These individuals – and many more
– have flourished because of the College's commitment to providing
access to higher education and to fostering achievement.”
As racial integration comes to fruition, traditionally white colleges
and universities now view black students as fair game in their
recruiting efforts.
Yesteryear’s legalized racial segregation laws that once guaranteed
Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) a steady supply of
students are now relics of a by-gone era and have been replaced by a
highly competitive college marketplace.
HBCU
Savannah
State
University
helps us appreciate today’s student recruitment paradigm shift in their
Recommendations for a
Comprehensive Enrollment & Admissions Plan 1989-2007. “. . .
Influential is the increasingly crowded and complex higher education
environment in southeast Georgia,
generated by a recent influx of suppliers--for example,
Armstrong
Atlantic
University, The Savannah College of Art and Design,
Savannah
Technical
College, and
South College. These accumulated environmental
changes have led to a truly dramatic decline in market share of
southeast Georgia African-American students enrolled at Savannah State
University . . . ; and the
declining share of African-American students has not been compensated by
a growing share of non-black minority students. It should also be noted
that the changing market shares are thought to be highly associated with
the changing nature of students remaining at
Savannah
State
University.”
In essence, traditionally white colleges are now cherry-picking Savannah State
University’s yesteryear
African American student base for college ready individuals to meet
their racial and ethnic diversity goals.
Savannah
State
University, therefore, finds itself having
to clean up the educational debacle emanating from the public schools
under-preparing today’s students to handle college work. Furthermore,
Savannah
State
University’s dropping in enrollment means
that dollars coming into the university must be stretched to make ends
meet. One might expect a
similar dollar stretching scenario where the institution is surviving
from hand to mouth might force some college administrations to make
decisions that are tantamount to robbing Peter to pay Paul.
What is apparent is that some Historically Black Colleges and
Universities need business plans for today’s survival and tomorrow’s
eventual prospering under a Twenty-First Century integrationist
marketplace paradigm. As the
mainstream college market grows even more competitive, from interstate
brick and mortar institutions (University of Phoenix,
DeVry
University,
Strayer University and others) and e-campuses of
online universities, HBCUs can expect a further shakeout similar to
Morris Brown teetering with bankruptcy if they remain wedded to
yesterday’s staid modus operandi mindsets.
According to the National
Center
for Education Statistics in an article,
Historically
Black Colleges and Universities, 1976 to 2001,
the percentage of Blacks receiving Bachelor’s level degrees from HBCUs
dropped from 35.4 percent to 21.5 percent in the period 1976-1977 to
2001-2002. On the other hand,
Educational Foundations
reports, “. . .at a time when Black access to historically White
institutions is once again in decline, we need additional research to
treat more comprehensively the basic assumptions and questions behind
the African American institutions that might fill the gap.”
Are we ignoring yesterday’s wisdom in setting up Historically
Black Colleges and Universities that offered Black Americans access to a
college education when legalized racial segregation reigned?
Just think about it, today obtaining the Bachelor level degree
has evolved into a rite of passage into the economic mainstream.
If the HBCUs disappear, does
this mean that many Blacks will never gain entrance into the economic
mainstream?
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