‘The Disparities Are Significant’
As colleges across the country grapple with serious housing shortages this year, many historically Black colleges are feeling the strain layered upon decades of historical underinvestment, in some cases on top of growing enrollments.
At Florida A&M University, more than 500 incoming first-year and transfer students and 800 upperclass students were on a waiting list for on-campus housing as of July. Howard University’s growing enrollment has pushed more upperclass students off campus in search of affordable housing in the challenging rental market of Washington, D.C. At Kentucky State University, some students learned recently that they might not have on-campus housing. At North Carolina A&T State University, up to 100 students were expected to start the school year living in a hotel miles from campus amid a housing shortage. Morgan State University, in Maryland, will house 500 students in a hotel to accommodate a growing number of students from out of state. Tennessee State University students were still looking for a place to live last month.
Nationwide, the college-housing crunch is the result of both more students clamoring to live on campus after years of pandemic isolation and soaring rents, which are making it more difficult for students to afford off-campus housing and putting a squeeze on on-campus dorms.
On some campuses, enrollments have dropped in recent years, alleviating some of the pressure for housing: Since the start of the pandemic, undergraduate enrollment has dropped by 1.4 million students. But many HBCUs are bucking the trend and enrolling more students, further contributing to the need for student housing.
Students at HBCUs are already at higher risk of housing problems than are other college students. A survey by the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice at Temple University in the fall of 2020, for example, found that 20 percent of HBCU students experienced homelessness in the previous 12 months, compared with 14 percent of all college students. Fifty-five percent of students at HBCUs experienced housing insecurity in the previous 12 months, compared with 48 percent of all college students.
“The disparities are significant. And why? Because of systemic racism,” said Paula Umaña, director of institutional partnerships and engagement at the Hope Center. “It’s ingrained in the lack of funding for HBCUs.”
According to the study, HBCUs have long track records of working to meet students’ basic needs: “Early histories of HBCUs vividly document how faculty and staff went above and beyond to make sure students had enough to eat, clothes to wear, and a safe place to sleep. Oftentimes, faculty and staff brought students to their own homes for a ‘home-cooked meal.’”
The study found that nearly half (49 percent) of HBCU respondents who received emergency aid — typically awarded as small grants to help with basic needs such as housing and food — said they used some of the money to pay for housing and just over one-quarter (26 percent) used it to avoid being evicted.
The historical underfunding of HBCUs has contributed to the lack of adequate student housing. A 2018 report, for example, found that public HBCUs reported deferred-maintenance backlogs of $67 million for campus facilities, on average, and private HBCUs, $17 million. Officials at nearly half of the HBCUs interviewed for the report, by the Government Accountability Office, said residence halls on their campuses were outdated or in need of repairs.
Howard University gives priority to first- and second-year students for on-campus housing, said Rashad Young, senior vice president and chief strategy officer. That means that as the university’s enrollment has grown in recent years (total enrollment at Howard grew 28 percent from 2017 to 2021), more upperclass students have been forced to contend with the rapidly rising rents in the expensive Washington, D.C., market, where the prices are 19 percent higher than the national median, according to Zillow. Just last fall, Howard students protested for 34 days over, among other issues, housing problems that included mold, rodents, and a shortage of affordable off-campus options.
Howard estimates the average cost of housing for undergraduates living on campus at $10,262; splitting the average cost of a two-bedroom apartment in Washington for eight months, according to Zillow estimates, would be $11,448.
Young said affordable student housing is a high priority for Howard. “We recognize, given the demographic of our population and the fact that nearly half of our undergrad population is Pell Grant-eligible, that they’ve got a different financial circumstance, often, than many students who attend other schools in this region,” Young said. Howard’s president and board, he said, have “made it a priority to try to be as attentive to those financial needs, including housing needs, as possible.”
Over the past two years, Howard has added nearly 800 beds for students on campus, including opening up a building that previously housed professional and graduate students to undergraduates, Young said. He added that plans are underway to start building on-campus housing for 1,200 to 1,600 students within the next three years.
North Carolina A&T became the nation’s largest HBCU in 2014 and has been dealing with housing shortages for about a decade, according to Todd Simmons, associate vice chancellor for university relations.
“We recognize that having increased the population by 25 percent over seven years creates inevitable stress and strain that we need to acclimate to,” Simmons said. Last year the university had an enrollment of 13,322; this year administrators estimate it will enroll about 13,500, with a goal of 14,000 by the next academic year.
Simmons said the university provides housing for about half its undergraduates (higher than the average of 36 percent of undergraduates who lived on campus at public four-year colleges in 2015-16, according to one study). “We’re at 100-percent capacity every year for the close-to-6,000 bed spaces we can now provide both on campus and off,” Simmons said.
The university plans to begin construction next spring on a 450-bed residence hall.
A report published in February by Forbes magazine that compared the state funding of predominantly white and historically Black land-grant colleges found that North Carolina A&T had been underfunded by $2.8 billion since 1987, after adjusting for inflation.
“If we are disadvantaged in funding for housing and other campus services that students need, then that has an equally disproportionately large effect on African Americans in higher education just because of our size and how many students we enroll here,” Simmons said. “And we have to recognize that whenever there is a shortfall, it’s going to affect African Americans in higher education significantly just because of the size and the impact that we have in higher education.” —Adrienne Lu
