HBCUs see surge in applications after George Floyd protests, help from Black celebs
By: Joyce E. Davis
When Dr. Nichole Butler-Mooyoung was a freshman at the University of Miami in the late 1980s, she visited friends at Howard University in Washington, D.C., for one of Howard’s legendary homecomings.
By the next year, she had transferred to the renowned historically Black school, which boasts an impressive roster of alumni, including the first Black Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall, Pultizer- and Nobel-winning author Toni Morrison and “Black Panther” star Chadwick Boseman.
“I walked on that campus and I said, ‘I have never seen anything like this in my life. Take me to the application office.’ And I got my application before I left,” said Butler-Mooyoung, an OB/GYN whose daughter, Skylar Mooyoung, is now a senior at Howard. “I had been at Miami a whole six weeks, but I said I’m coming to this place with all these Black people.”
Her experience is one that an increasing number of Black people want to share. There has been a dramatic recent increase in applications to historically Black colleges and universities — up 30% at some schools. Applications to Morehouse College, a men’s historically Black college in Atlanta, increased 60% in 2020, according to Date USA, a Deloitte company that aggregates data. Across the street at Spelman College for women, applications jumped to more than 11,000 in 2021, from 4,000 in 2014.
“The specialness is that we are intentional about this empowerment mode, when other spaces look at students from a deficit perspective. And we don’t,” professor Kimberly Jackson, chair of Spelman’s chemistry and biochemistry department, said of the school’s appeal. “When they come in, we tell them, ‘You have potential. We highlight Black female scholars at Spelman.’” She said HBCUs give academics the space to do culturally relevant work.
Black celebs put spotlight on HBCUs
HBCUs have also benefited from partnerships with and investment by major companies and wealthy individuals. Tennis legend Serena Williams and actor Michael B. Jordan collaborated in 2021 on a contest to award $1 million to an HBCU student with an outstanding business plan. In 2020, actor Kevin Hart provided $600,000 in scholarships to 18 qualifying HBCU students.
Former NFL star Deion Sanders donated a portion of his $300,000 base salary as head football coach at Jackson State University to a stadium project at that HBCU. Sanders was recently hired as head coach at Colorado, but his success at Jackson State — 27-6 in three seasons, two conference championships — was a boon for the school. A university spokesman said the Tigers athletic department generated the equivalent of $185 million in advertising and exposure in the first seven months of his leadership.
Filmmaker Will Packer, who produced the 2022 Academy Awards, made a $500,000 gift in 2021 to his alma mater, Florida A&M University, for an amphitheater now named for him. “Attending an HBCU was the best decision I ever made,” he said of his college experience.
“At FAMU, I found a competitive environment of like-minded individuals that felt equal parts safe, nurturing and driven. It was there I found my voice and passion for filmmaking.”
Skylar Mooyoung, who followed in her mother’s footsteps to Howard, said the attention paid to celebrity alumni is having a positive impact on HBCUs.
“With Kamala Harris being the vice president of the United States, people want to go to HBCUs more,” she said. “Not that I was ever trying to justify why I went to an HBCU, but I don’t have to anymore because everyone knows that (Howard) is her alma mater.”
