HBCUs are broke. Students know it, alumni know it, corporations know it and the government knows it. The only time institutions invest money is when they stand to make money -- usually around homecoming and select athletic events.
People have made a great deal of money from HBCUs looking to resolve issues with fundraising, alumni giving and community engagement, all to figure out how black colleges can turn tradition and a cultural mission into sustainable income. The question has always been, "how can we convince people to give us more money?" With tough economic times and the nation creeping dangerously close to the fallacy of 'post-racial society,' the answers are harder to find now more than in any other period.
Lean periods of giving and alumni engagement can be turned around in a very short period, with a very simple adjustment in the halls of the HBCU academe. Until now, HBCUs have prepared their students to be leaders in a range of industries.
But they haven't yet taught, with consistency, to own these industries.
HBCUs must keep up the same academic rigor and heartfelt investment between faculty and student. This is not only the most endearing way to learn, but a proven system of developing high-achieving and remedial students alike on the same path to academic success. A new part must be added to this system; a challenge for each student to develop his own business as part of his academic journey.
Every HBCU freshman orientation should offer history of the university and development of a personal business plan. Students would be instructed on what they are, who they are, where they are from and how these things build a personal and professional brand. They would required to change and amend that plan, with an exit interview of how their plan developed over the course of four-to-six years at the institution.
It doesn't even need them to pick a major, just a commitment to objectively describing what they want their life to amount to and how education, family, spirituality and society influence the personal business plan.
Between sophomore and senior year, every personal business plan must be amended to include a specific entrepreneurial goal. Engineering majors would be required to layout how they would start their own firms or defense contracting corporations. Social work majors should describe how they will develop their own non-profit organizations, education majors should have plans to open charter schools or learning centers, creative writing majors would develop the beginnings of owning a publishing house, and so on.
Throughout their years, HBCU students would be encouraged to develop their own business models with defined metrics on the success of their plan and their ability to make their businesses grow on campus, in the community, in the state, and throughout the world. HBCU foundations should not only give out academic scholarships, but start-up and seed money for the best business ideas of their students AND faculty.
By senior year, if these plans have remained relatively unchanged, all HBCUs should offer a mandatory senior seminar where those business plans would be submitted to the home states of those students in application for sole proprietorships, LLCs, or otherwise. The soon-to-be alumni would be able to expertly describe the business that they will soon own, and get new information on business taxes, small business loan programs, venture capital financing, and other business development strategies.
No HBCU student should leave the gates of their school without a diploma in one hand, and a federal tax ID confirmation letter in the other.
Like the college learning experience, some won't make it. A few will opt for a dream of service in the military or to work for a company they really like. Everyone can't and shouldn't be a business owner.
But if HBCUs condition students to think as owners and not workers, the effort will yield the alumni who own property and business brands that will fund their respective alma maters, and develop the next generation of entrepreneurs that will create a golden age of self-sufficiency and unlimited growth for Black America.
Follow Jarrett L. Carter on Twitter: www.twitter.com/HBCUDigest
Why would alumni want to perpetuate financial, academic, administrative, and physical plant mismanagement ? While I write, Chinese six year olds are at their desks learning English and algebra. India is churning out biomedical engineers. More effective cancer research is coming out the University of Copenhagen any research facility in the U.S. What is truly needed is practical preparation for entry into the fields of growing specialized sciences .....the rest can be fine tuned to the "high achieving remedial students".
In China, those 6 year olds are statically more likely to throw themselves off of a roof if they get a calculation wrong with the Ipod54.3 , while India has an overwhelming number of unemployed engineers because reading comprehension is culturally non existent...
But I agree with the overall gist of the statement.
The reality is - HBCU graduates perform better than their white counterparts
http://hbcubuzz.com/hbcu-grads-outperform-black-graduates-of-predominately-white-institutions-pwi/
Furthermore, speaking from personal experience, there are no shortages of HBCU alumnus (and even current students) who go forward to become lucrative entrepreneurs.
The reality is, most HBCUs are a “survival of the fittest” environments. One in which a young wide eyed student has to navigate dilapidated dorms (if any at all), subpar equipment, disillusioned professors, unqualified or uncaring administration, and hostile communities in which not enough has been done to bridge a gap of social understanding (the local boys rob the students and campus security sleeps in their patrol cars) . Yet , through all this – most presidents still live high on the horse…
After four years, the cream rises to the top and graduates have not only received an academic education but also one in the real world.
..Unfortunately, the later lesson doesn’t do much for that “alumni envelope” that hits your mail box every other month or so…
you should say, "high on the hog"....but fabulous comments..you hit the nail on the head!