A Just Future, Appendix A

As you can see, the top four-year colleges and universities in the country tend to be older, historically white institutions that for centuries took both formal and informal measures to exclude marginalized student populations, in particular women and African-American students.

A note on the admission of African American students: At some universities, Black Americans were excluded in practice though not in policy. This was the case, for example, at Princeton University. As a result, some of the earlier nineteenth-century admissions dates for African-American students represent merely the year that the first Black American student was admitted, not the definitive moment when African-American students arrived in significant numbers. Not until well into the twentieth century did large numbers of African Americans and other students of color enter historically white colleges and universities. 

By contrast, the records of some universities indicate the introduction of a more formal policy of extending college admission to African-American students. This was the case for Johns Hopkins University and Yale University.

Table A-1: Key Dates in the History of Access to the Top 10 Colleges and Universities in the US

*NOTES:

• Harvard University combined women's admissions processes with Radcliffe in 1975.

• Harvard University admitted the college’s first Black student in 1847, but he died before the semester started. Another African-American student wasn't admitted again until 1870.

According to the US Department of Education, the Higher Education Act of 1965 defines an HBCU as “…any historically black college or university that was established prior to 1964, whose principal mission was, and is, the education of black Americans, and that is accredited by a nationally recognized accrediting agency or association determined by the Secretary [of Education] to be a reliable authority as to the quality of training offered or is, according to such an agency or association, making reasonable progress toward accreditation.”

The following table includes HBCUs that have been shuttered over the years.

Table A-2: HBCUs in the United States

Sources:

• “HBCU Listing,” The Hundred Seven, Retrieved from https://www.thehundred-seven.org/hbculist.html (last updated 2018)

• “Official List of HBCUs,” HBCU Connect, Retrieved from https://hbcuconnect.com/colleges/ (last updated 2020)

• US Department of Education, “What is an HBCU?” Retrieved from  White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity through Historically Black Colleges and Universities, https://sites.ed.gov/whhbcu/one-hundred-and-five-historically-black-colleges-and-universities/