Colleges and universities will be trumpeting their horns over the next few months, celebrating the beginning of another school year filled with lots of promise and anticipation for many among administrators, teachers, behind-the-scenes staffers and students.
The excitement masks a growing sense of anxiety, however, especially among historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), as warning signs abound for many small and mid-size institutions.
Overall, enrollment in higher education continues to decline at many small and mid-size schools across the country, says higher education analysts who note that many institutions are heavily dependent upon tuition, federal student aid and philanthropic donors.
Meanwhile, a growing chorus of voices is saying higher education, as it was widely known and accepted in the last century, is steadily diminishing. Their declarations are growing with few high-profile people of influence urging a shift from the direction of the cliff.
Trump administration education officials are carefully pushing HBCUs that are on the financial edge to consider merging or taking other bold cost-cutting steps, knowledgeable higher education administrators say. The topic is said to be at the centerpiece of several HBCU meetings set to be held this fall in Washington, D.C.
There are many who suggest the merger-consolidation-closure advocates abandon that push and instead embrace efforts to invest more in HBCUs, as was the case when they began a century and a half ago.
“We have to be concerned,” says Dillard University president Dr. Walter M. Kimbrough, noting the tough time facing HBCUs call for people with influence to do more than suggest the institutions have largely served their purpose and their chapter in history should be turned.
