The oldest HBCU, now Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, traces its roots to 1837. Many more were founded after the Civil War by Black churches, missionary groups and the Freedmen's Bureau. The second Morrill Act of 1890 required Southern states to either admit Black students to their land-grant colleges or fund separate ones, creating the 1890 land-grant HBCUs. The Higher Education Act of 1965 defined HBCUs in federal law.
HBCUs have long been underfunded. In 2023, the US Departments of Education and Agriculture wrote to the governors of 16 states. They said the states' land-grant HBCUs had been underfunded by more than $12 billion over about three decades, compared with other land-grant universities.
HBCUs remain central to Black education and leadership. Alumni include Thurgood Marshall, Toni Morrison and Kamala Harris. HBCUs enroll students of all races, and many serve large numbers of first-generation and low-income students. They matter because they were built to educate students the rest of higher education shut out, and they still produce a large share of Black professionals.