President Barack Obama is expected to sign the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities on Friday afternoon, making more money and support from the federal government available to the institutions, beginning with the 2011 budget.

“This is a new day for those of us who care about black colleges and the future of this nation,” John S. Wilson, executive director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs, told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “This will establish a new platform for strengthening the capacity of HBCUs.”

The executive order calls for the historic institutions to receive more support from federal agencies in accomplishing their mission. It also makes more money available to all college students who qualify for Pell Grants.

“This executive order provides $98 million in new money for HBCUs,” Wilson said. And the nearly $400 million in increased funds for Pell Grants is expected to find its way to students at HBCUs, said Wilson, a graduate of Morehouse College, who went on to earn his doctorate at Harvard University. He was appointed in July to head up the HBCU White House Initiative through the U.S. Department of Education.

While former President George W. Bush’s HBCU initiative provided $85 million for two years, the Obama Order calls for funding for 10 years, Wilson said.

The money outlined in the executive order is contingent upon the passage of President Obama’s recently introduced budget for fiscal 2011. Wilson said he is confident that the funds will be included in the budget when it is passed.

“There is a general feeling that we are going to educate ourselves to a better nation and a better world,” he said, adding this shows the administration’s commitment to educating all Americans “from the cradle to career.”
 
In addition to the $98 for strengthening HBCUs, the budget includes $20.5 million for the HBCU Capital Financing program to provide HBCUs with access to financing for the repair, renovation, and construction or acquisition of educational facilities, instructional equipment, research instrumentation and physical infrastructure and $64.5 million for the Strengthening Historically Black Graduate Institution program, a $3.1 million or five percent increase.

The budget also nearly doubles the aid available in Pell Grants from $18.2 billion in the 2008-2009 award year to a proposed $34.8 billion in 2011-2012. The Obama administration said the funding increases support for both a growing number of students eligible for Pell Grants and an increase in the maximum Pell Grant award from $4,731 to a proposed $5,710.

Beverly Tatum, president of Spelman College, says that the appointment of Wilson as head of the White House Initiative on HBCUs and the signing of the executive order on HBCUs show that historically black institutions of higher education are relevant to the nation’s future.

“Consider the fact that while the 105 public and private HBCUs make up only 3 percent of today's colleges and universities, more than 20 percent of all African-American college graduates attended an HBCU,” Tatum wrote in a recent column published on Huffington Post.

“Particularly in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), where black students are woefully under-represented in most predominantly white institutions, HBCUs have demonstrated great effectiveness in fostering academic success. In fact, according to the National Science Foundation, almost a third of all doctoral degrees awarded in the sciences to African-Americans went to men and women who attended HBCUs as undergraduates,” Tatum said.

Spelman has sent 150 African-American women on to earn Ph.D. degrees in the STEM fields in the 10 years between 1997 and 2006, she said. At the same time, Georgia Tech has had 32, Emory University had 24, Duke had 34 and the University of North Carolina .....

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