Spelman College, Howard and Hampton Among U.S. News & World Report’s Top HBCUs
Date: Thursday, October 04, 2007
By: Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, BlackAmericaWeb.com
Atlanta’s Spelman College ranks top among the nation’s historically black colleges and universities, followed closely by Howard University, Hampton University, Morehouse College and Fisk University in a prestigious ranking published this week for the first time by U.S. News and World Report.
The magazine each year publishes a ranking of research institutions and public and private universities. It developed a ranking of HBCUs in addition to its annual Best Colleges 2008 ranking. The HBCUs are compared only to other HBCUs in the ranking.
Rankings are based on several factors, including class size, alumni giving, graduation rates, faculty-student ratio and college entrance scores for freshmen.
Spelman graduates 77 percent of its students, compared with a national average of 54 percent. Four of the top five colleges have graduation rates that exceed the national average.
The fact that U.S. News and World Report has issued these rankings of black colleges is itself a testament to what HBCUs are accomplishing, said Michael Lomax, president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund. “Students and parents who are researching quality information about colleges and universities will truly benefit from this landmark ranking,” he said.
HBCUs represent just 3 percent of the nation's more than 4,000 colleges and universities, but 24 percent of all African-American college students started college at HBCUs, according to the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. HBCUs also award 24 percent of the undergraduate degrees earned by African-Americans.
The rankings are based on data from the 2006 school year. Two of those institutions based in New Orleans -- Xavier University and Dillard University -- made the top 10 ranking at a time when both were in the midst of recovery from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Tougaloo College, based outside of Jackson, Mississippi is ranked 20 on the list. It sustained wind damage from Katrina.
None of the schools “have the large endowments that better financed colleges can draw on in times of trouble,” Lomax said. “The rankings are an indicator that quality is not defined by finances alone. Only two of the 14 UNCF schools in the top 36 have endowments over $100 million.”
The ranking also showed:
- Tennessee State University in Nashville is the highest ranking public HBCU. TSU has a graduation rate of 45 percent and a faculty-student ratio of 16 to 1. The school is noted for several degree programs, including engineering, nursing, education and the sciences.
- Twenty seven of the 34 colleges and universities ranked as Tier 1 institutions in the South -- mainly Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina.
- The rate of alumni giving at the top HBCUs varies from 2 percent at Delaware State and Kentucky State to 37 percent at Claflin University in South Carolina and 36 percent at Tougaloo College in Mississippi.
Dr. Zia Hasan, vice president of Institutional Research at Claflin, attributed much of that university’s success in alumni support to the overall growth and direction of the school, which is affiliated with the United Methodist Church and located in Orangeburg, S.C.
“In the past 10 years, we’ve almost doubled the number of students from 900 to 1,800. Last year alone, our faculty had more than $15 million in research grants,” Hasan told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “Our alumni support us because they can see we are heading in the right direction. Just a few years ago, we were in the fourth tier. Now we are number seven.”
About 82 percent of the students at Claflin come from South Carolina, however 15 countries are represented in the student body. Also, the university has received approval to open a campus in London, England, Hasan said.
According to U.S. News and World Report, a school had to be currently listed as part of the U.S. Department of Education's "Historically Black Colleges and Universities" registry to be included in the ranking. An HBCU is "any historically black college or university that was established prior to 1964, whose principal mission was, and is, the education of black Americans, and that is accredited by a nationally recognized accrediting agency or association determined by the Secretary [of Education] to be a reliable authority as to the quality of training offered or is, according to such an agency or association, making reasonable progress toward accreditation."
The rankings were limited to HBCUs that are undergraduate baccalaureate-granting institutions, enrolling primarily first-year, first-time students and also currently included in the 2008 America's Best Colleges rankings.
Linda and Harry Chambers of Birmingham said their two children didn’t have to look far when searching for the right HBCU.
Their daughter Hali is a senior at Alabama’s Tuskegee University majoring in psychology and preparing to enter graduate school. She is a Ronald E. McNair Scholar. Her brother, Alonso, is a sophomore at Tuskegee majoring in marketing.
“They wanted to go to an HBCU. They had heard us talk about our experience and the camaraderie we enjoyed in college,” said Linda Chambers. She and her husband are graduates of Alabama State University in Montgomery.
“My children are getting a great education, and they have gained a sense of self worth,” Chambers told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “They have a foundation. They feel like they are prepared to compete with anyone in any situation.”
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demp109 says:
I would be interested in learning how HBCU's ranked in the national standings with their counterparts
clarasfuller says:
HBCUs have done an outstanding job of educating our youth since their founding. This recognition is very late in coming.
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bigload says:
If the noose lesson incident is any indication of the collective IQ on campus I will be looking way way
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JRizzle says:
How my life could be now if I went to a black college
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