July 22, 2024 July 22, 2024
VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL
The Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
President
The Honorable Kamala Harris
Vice President
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Biden, Vice President Harris,
The President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges & Universities simply wants to say thank you. While many have suggested that they comprehend the importance of America’s HBCUs, no Administration, and we do mean NO administration – in the history of our republic – has done more for HBCUs than the Biden-Harris Administration. Delivering more than $17 billion in investments to the HBCU community in less than three and a half years is unprecedented. You know the details:
- The American Rescue Plan for emergency grants for students, campus operations, staffing, and learning during the pandemic;
- Infrastructure loan forgiveness for 45 public and private HBCUs;
- The expansion of academic capacity as well as financial aid for students from low-and middle-income families; and support for HBCUs, which were victimized by bomb threats to their campuses;
- Expanding research opportunities for HBCUs, allowing them to become more competitive as centers for innovation;
- Approving nearly $160 billion in student debt cancellation for over 4.5 million people.
While these are just a few of the noted achievements for HBCUs in specific, your administration has also delivered the most significant increase to Pell Grants in the last decade, made permanent fixes to Public Service Loan Forgiveness, and recently launched a new student debt repayment plan that will cut payments for undergraduate borrowers in half. A rising tide lifts all boats. By focusing on the HBCU community, you have created an avenue for all students and families to pursue their childhood dreams.
Mr. President, you made two particularly relevant comments at your last meeting with the PBA.
The first: “HBCUs are engineers of economic mobility helping to increase the Black middle class. When the middle class does well, everybody does well.”
That sounds like the best return on investment in higher education.
The second: “I make no apologies for efforts to support HBCUs.”
That sounds like Joe Biden.
You have forever changed the course of our outstanding institutions, Mr. President, and your actions have affirmed something you have known since you launched your first campaign on the hallowed grounds of Delaware State University in 1971: if you believe in access and opportunity for all, regardless of what you look like, where you come from, or who you love, you believe in HBCUs.
Madam Vice President—an HBCU alumna yourself—you, of course, know that HBCUs have long accepted doing more with less. But because of the Biden-Harris team, it is clear that less is no longer acceptable. Madam Vice President, please know that your substantive impact is not lost on us. Like many of our mothers and fathers told us and, as I suspect your parents told you, too, “You have to be twice as good, twice as smart, twice as resilient, and twice as thoughtful just to get a seat at the table at which we have been settling for crumbs.” Your example has taught us that we can set our own table. While many think that the clarion call of “HU” is reserved for Howard University, we all know it is the rallying cry for Black Excellence, Black Equity, and Black Energy in an America that needs us all.
You are both well aware that the return on investment for HBCUs is more than just financial. On every indicator of well-being, Black students attending HBCUs fare better than similarly situated students at predominantly white institutions. In addition to educating talented people of color and enabling a mobility rate twice that of our peers, we also make confident global citizens who are committed to finding professional success and giving back to their communities. In that sense, it is not surprising that figures like these are routinely repeated. In addition to generating more than $16 billion in direct economic impact, HBCUs still produce 80 percent of Black judges, 25 percent of Black science professionals, 70 percent of Black dentists and physicians, and 40 percent of Black members of Congress. And as the United Negro College Fund has long noted, HBCUs remain the primary driver behind moving low-income Black people into the middle class.
The work that the PBA has done under your collective leadership has been transformative for all of us, and we will continue for as long as you allow us to serve. That said, the legacy, the impact, and the movement toward something greater than our own self-interest belongs to the Biden-Harris administration.
Mr. President, we are now and will continue to be prepared to heed your selfless, courageous, democratic call, and we will work over the next several months to carry the work of your presidency forward on behalf of our country and all of the institutions—including HBCUs—that have adhered to the nation’s highest pursuit: “a more perfect union.” We are, as ever, thankful for your leadership and are resolute in our continued pursuits: “We shall not be moved!”
Godspeed to both of you,
Tony Allen, Ph.D.
Chairman, President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges & Universities
President, Delaware State University
Glenda Glover, Ph.D., J.D., CPA
Vice Chairwoman, President’s Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges & Universities
President Emerita, Tennessee State University
