Feds allege 16 states are underfunding Black land-grant colleges

Sixteen states have received letters from the U.S. Departments of Education and Agriculture alleging they underfunded their land-grant historically Black colleges and universities.

The governors of Maryland and Virginia, two of the states to get the letter, are reacting quite differently.

Virginia has two land-grant universities – Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, or Virginia Tech and Virginia State University. Maryland has the University of Maryland, College Park and University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

The universities were founded by the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890, which ceded federal lands to states to sell so they could use the proceeds to build new universities. VSU and Eastern Shore were established by the 1890 act, which aimed at creating universities for Black students.

Virginia State University and University of Maryland Eastern Shore are historically Black universities. Compared to their state counterparts since 1987, the federal government asserted that VSU had been shorted over $277 million and Eastern Shore more than $321 million.

Within a few weeks of receiving Virginia’s letter, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration responded with a letter from its Secretary of Education, Aimee Guidera, countering the claims of underfunding and pointing to “record investments” it has made in the school.

“On average, our Administration has provided the highest per student investment at our public HBCUs of any other gubernatorial administration since 1994, when reliable records are available,” Guidera wrote.

She underscored steps Virginia has taken thus far to adequately fund its historically Black universities, citing a 2001 agreement between the state and the U.S. Department of Education “in which the Commonwealth agreed to provide additional investment to the state’s public HBCUs and subsequent recognition from [the department] in 2004 that Virginia was on track with its commitments to HBCUs.”

The administration prefers to rely on state data, though it supplies seven years less of data than the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System the departments used to conduct their analysis, as Guidera noted there are “well-documented issues” with that system.

“IPEDS as currently constructed does not collect high quality, student-level data,” Guidera wrote, citing a 2016 study by the Institute for Higher Education Policy that stated that the system was “insufficient to answer the emerging critical questions that facilitate college choice, transparency, policymaking, institutional improvement, and accountability.”

In contrast, Maryland has not challenged the data presented in the federal study despite allotting $577 million over a decade and $422 million to its HBCUs within the past couple of years.

Upon receiving the state’s letter, Gov. Wes Moore’s office issued a statement saying he would “continue to support these life-changing colleges and universities that make Maryland a more equitable and competitive state,” The Washington Post reported.

Every state in the American South received a letter except for Delaware.