HBCU Funding Fight Puts First-Generation Students at Risk

ST. LOUIS — With a 2.0 high school GPA, Xavier Hickman thought college was unattainable. 

But mentors in the TRIO Upward Bound Program challenged him to not limit himself. A low GPA didn’t have to block him from going to the next level. Hickman’s family didn’t have much, and the program was designed for students in exactly that situation, helping them prepare for college and, in his case, introducing him to Harris-Stowe State University, St. Louis’ only historically Black college. 

Yet, that chance at a higher education was nearly ripped away earlier this spring. The 19-year-old, now a rising junior at Harris-Stowe, was among the first-generation college students who were caught in the middle of a legislative debate on how Missouri funds higher education. Just weeks before the spring semester ended, a proposed funding model threatened to tie college budgets to full-time enrollment numbers — a formula that would have starved smaller institutions of the resources they needed to survive.

Under the proposal, funding for the HBCU would have been cut by nearly $5 million. If enacted, Harris-Stowe’s president warned, a tuition increase would follow, likely driving some students out of college. 

Across the country, states continue to grapple with how to fund higher education amid soaring costs over the past few years as Republican legislators threaten to gut education funding. HBCUs, already underfunded and continually fighting for resources, are among the most vulnerable. 

It’s even worse for smaller colleges. In Kentucky, politicians voted to turn Kentucky State University, the state’s only public HBCU, into a polytechnical-focus institution. In Tennessee, lawmakers overhauled Tennessee State University. 

Harris-Stowe’s president, LaTonia Collins Smith, sounded the alarm on social media about the potential funding threat, urging alumni and supporters of the Missouri HBCU to write to legislators about the important role Harris-Stowe plays in the lives of students and community members. 

“Many of our students are first-generation. Many of them are low-income, and I’m unapologetic about that. I am committed to that population, because what I know is this education is an equalizer,” Collins Smith said. 

This past academic year, full-time enrollment cost between $5,200 and $7,000, according to the university website. 

The mission, she said, is to keep the tuition affordable and the university accessible. She grew up in St. Louis and understands Harris-Stowe’s significance to the city and the surrounding areas.

In the end, the original bill was changed, removing the part that would have cut funding for the state’s two HBCUs and other small colleges. Still, Republican legislators warned that the funding issue remains “unsustainable” and must be fixed by December 2026. 

The fate of small colleges like Harris-Stowe still hangs in the balance, and the students feel the ripple effects of its uncertain future.  

Rising cost of education trickles down 

Reggie Locke, a resident assistant and rising junior from Kansas City, Missouri, wished the residents in Bosley Residence Hall a great summer as they moved out in May. Casually, he told them he’d see them next semester. But many students responded they wouldn’t be returning due to a lack of money, especially for housing. 

Student leaders said it’s apparent that funding is already an issue, noting vacant faculty positions, such as the director of housing. 

“Students aren’t asking the administration about what’s going on. They’re asking student leaders,” Locke said. “You just have to be ready to answer them, but not really knowing what’s going on.” 

Sometimes it is difficult to communicate to the student body why the university doesn’t host large-scale events with big-name artists like other colleges do, students said. But there have been other indicators that the university might not survive severe state budget cuts. 

Students recalled when Harris-Stowe distributed emergency funds from the American Rescue Plan under the Biden administration, which helped thousands of college students pay for college in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that funds have run out, Jala Johnson, a graduate and former student body president, said she’s noticing more people are having to return home or enroll part time because of financial issues. 

“With that fund being exhausted as of December of last year, a lot of students just can’t afford it, even though we are one of the most affordable universities around,” Johnson said. “It was very disheartening to hear that students couldn’t afford housing.” 

As the cost of living has soared in recent years, college students haven’t been spared from seeing higher costs. 

De’Na Newborn, a Kansas City native and Harris-Stowe graduate, first enrolled in 2020 with nearly all of her university expenses paid. By 2023, she had paid for most, if not all, of her miscellaneous expenses and books. 

As costs continued to rise, she could see the domino effect around her: Several of her friends were first-generation college students. During her three years at the college, two of her friends had to take breaks due to finances. Some of her friends came from as far as Las Vegas to attend the university. For them, the Harris-Stowe graduate said, funding was mandatory. 

“When they take away our funding, it’s unfortunate,” Newborn said. “Funding is what drives initiatives that drive externships, drives partnerships between other schools. It will drive the curriculum forward and the rigor.” 

More than a teachers college  

The genesis of Harris-Stowe State University started with the community. 

Not too long after the college was founded in 1857 by the St. Louis Public School System to train future educators, it became the first public teacher education institution west of the Mississippi River, according to the university. 

In the early 20th century, the college began training white teachers, years before education was integrated through the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. 

Despite the institution’s contributions to the public school system in Missouri, it wasn’t until 1979 that Harris-Stowe became a member of the state system of public higher education.

Collins Smith, who has been the full-time president since 2021, said the legacy of the teachers college remains throughout the community. Collins Smith recalls that when she attended the city’s public schools in the 1980s and 1990s, the majority of her teachers were alumni of Harris-Stowe. 

Over the years, Harris-Stowe has grown to offer more than 60 majors. Still, the college falters behind other higher education institutions. It wasn’t until 2017 that the college added a Master’s in Business Administration, the institution’s first advanced degree.

However, students told Capital B they wouldn’t change their higher education journey, including passing through the small St. Louis HBCU, mainly for its support from faculty and low-cost programming. 

“If I never came to this college, I probably would have been stuck at some little job making $16 to $17 an hour and all that,” Hickman said. “But after college, it’s going to be way different.”

Hickman is majoring in mathematics at Harris-Stowe because the institution doesn’t have his intended major. In a couple of years, Hickman said, he’d have to transfer to St. Louis University, which is across the street from the small HBCU, to study mechanical engineering.

Right now, the university maintains fewer than 10 buildings on its campus. Soon, it will academics will expand with a new building for science, technology, engineering, and math, currently under construction through federal grants and partnerships. By comparison, St. Louis University maintains more than 120 buildings spread across its 127-acre campus, versus Harris-Stowe’s campus with less than 50 acres. 

Harris-Stowe has grown its programs from three academic colleges to four, serving a little more than 1,000 students. Still, in 2023, the Biden administration included Missouri among the states that have underfunded HBCUs. 

Hickman, a rising junior, said Harris-Stowe enrolled him in a program that helped him raise his GPA and provided additional support from faculty. Despite the nontraditional college pathway, Hickman said Harris-Stowe still gave him an opportunity he didn’t think was attainable.

“It’s people from poverty and things like that that come here and change their lives for the better, and not only just their lives, but their family lives,” he said. 

The post HBCU Funding Fight Puts First-Generation Students at Risk appeared first on Capital B News.