Working Paper: NBER ID: w31131
Authors: Gregory Price; Angelino Viceisza
Abstract: Historically Black colleges and universities are institutions that were established prior to 1964 with the principal mission of educating Black Americans. In this essay, we focus on two main issues. We start by examining how Black College students perform across HBCUs and non-HBCUs by looking at a relatively broad range of outcomes, including college and graduate school completion, job satisfaction, social mobility, civic engagement, and health. HBCUs punch significantly above their weight, especially considering their significant lack of resources. We then turn to the potential causes of these differences and provide a glimpse into the “secret sauce” of HBCUs. We conclude with potential implications for HBCU and non-HBCU policy.
Keywords: Historically Black Colleges and Universities; Black Students; Higher Education Outcomes; Social Mobility
JEL Codes: I21; J01; J15; Z13
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| attending an HBCU (I29) | improved outcomes (I14) |
| attending an HBCU (I29) | graduation rate (I23) |
| attending an HBCU (I29) | likelihood to graduate (A23) |
| attending an HBCU (I29) | graduation rates for intermediate test scores (I21) |
| attending an HBCU (I29) | graduation rates for low test scores (I21) |
| HBCUs (I29) | number of black PhDs in STEM (Y40) |