The absolute number of black men enrolled at historically black colleges and universities is the lowest since 1976.

This according to recent analysis from American Institute for Boys and Menwhich analyzed data from the Department of Education.

In fact, black men now make up only 26 percent of students at HBCUs—in 1976, that number was 38 percent.

All Things Considered Host Juana Summers spoke with Calvin Hadley — assistant professor of academic partnerships and student engagement at Howard University — about what’s happening, what’s being lost when black men don’t attend HBCUs, and how he’s trying to close the gap.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Highlights of the interview

Juana Summers: I want to start by talking about Howard, which of course is one of the premier HBCUs in this country—a long, long list I can’t recite of incredible alumni, including Vice President Kamala Harris. Let’s start there. Are you seeing this decline among black male students where you are?

Calvin Hadley: I am. I’m a Howard alum and remember as a student the numbers were pretty high at the time too. I think it was around 33-34% when I was a student, between 2004 and 2008. Now, as you announced in your intro, Howard University is around 25% male. And I think a recent statistic said about 19% black men. And that’s what it feels like on campus, that’s what it feels like, I think, in our social clubs, that’s what it feels like in the yard. And I think a lot of our male students have commented that in some of their classes, they’re the only men in their class.

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

/

Getty Images

Summers: So I will just say that I did not attend an HBCU. I attended a PWI – a predominantly white institution – but I have so many friends and family members who attended HBCUs. They talk to me about what this experience has meant to them, not only while they’re on campus, but also when they go out into their professional lives. They stay connected to the HBCU experience. They stay connected to communities like the Howard community you represent. So I just want to ask you, when there are fewer black men on campus, tell us: what does that mean? What do we lose when these people of color are not as strong a presence on campuses as yours?

Hadley: By the time students actually get to college, we’re dealing with men who have actually crossed what we call the “belief gap”—that gap between what students can actually achieve and what their teachers, professors, counselors think they can i can achieve . For black men, this gap is the largest. When they enter campus, the campus experiences are significantly affected by the imbalance, right?

At every educational institution we want a diversity of experience. And when you don’t have that many men in the class, that diversity of experience is significantly affected. It gets even scarier when we watch it before, right? I think we’re dealing with some really unique statistics right now. Black men graduate at a much lower rate than black women.

Summers: And that in all colleges.

Hadley: In all colleges, not just HBCUs. And so, this decline in the last decade has been seen more drastically. But the reality is that this is not a problem Howard. This is not an HBCU problem. This is not a PWI issue. This is an American education problem.

Summers: I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about what happens when these black people graduate from high school and they decide what’s next, what’s the next step. The study I talked about shows that since 2010, as you point out, black male enrollment has declined at all colleges. And it also points out that enrollment at HBCUs has also declined overall, but the decline in black male enrollment at HBCUs is outpacing these trends, if only slightly. Can you explain to me how you understand this gap?

Hadley: So I want to take a little step back. In 2013-2014, we had 2990 male applicants to Howard University in particular. In 2022-23 we had 9705. A significant, significant increase.

Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images/Getty Images North America

/

Getty Images North America

Summers: And what does that tell you?

Hadley: That Howard University education and HBCU education are highly sought after, right? And there are a number of really important things that happened between 2012 and 2022 – one of which was the election of President Donald Trump, another was the killing of George Floyd. I think when those things happen in the United States, the HBCU experience, which was already familiar to many of us, now became a much more attractive proposition. Notice a significant increase in these male applications.

What I didn’t give you was the number of female apps that go along with that. While we received 9700 male applications in 2022-2023, we received over 30,000 female applications. And I want to step aside and say that black women are tearing it up. All the statistics show, from high school to college to graduation, that black women are successful today, and the trajectory is straight up. Unfortunately, when you look at the black male, the exact opposite is true. So for those black men who are now left out of the college equation, that also means they are left out and stratified in a certain part of our society.

What we’re going to have now is an imbalance in the community that has a significant impact on our ability to create whole families, I think. On our ability to ensure that our generations after us have additional success and indeed have additional mobility.

Summers: I want to close with this: You are a product of Howard University, as you point out. Now you work at the university. And you’re raising two young black boys. What is your argument for why a young black person who might hear our conversation in 2024 should choose to attend an HBCU?

Hadley: wow Thanks for that. You attend an HBCU for an education not a degree, and as an assistant provost, that’s not a popular thing to say. The education you receive at an HBCU transcends the classroom experience. It transcends the relationship you have with your teacher. Education exists between the lines of the pages. HBCUs flood you with a sense of faith. We talked about the importance of that faith on the front end, the faith gap that exists in K through 12.

HBCUs are designed to instill in you the belief that you can be even greater than you can dream. Howard University and the HBCU community gave me—and many others, like our vice president—a sense of being enough. I can be academically successful. But my world is not just academic. I can be enough and contribute to this society, in this space, in a way that allows me to feel whole and contribute to something much bigger than myself. The HBCU community needs you. And when I talk to that young man in 2024: Come because we need you. Come because you are important. Come because without you our community is hurting.

Copyright 2024 NPR