20 Historically Black Colleges That Set Grads Up For Success

10. Delaware State University

Founded in 1891 as the State College for Colored Students, Delaware State University has grown into a research institution with nationally recognized programs in agriculture, aviation, business, nursing and education. It offers doctoral degrees in fields including neuroscience, optics and educational leadership. Alumni include Ruth Ann Minner, who served as the state’s first female governor from 2001 to 2009 and Emmy Award-winning TV host and comedian Sheryl Underwood.

Location: Dover, Delaware

Enrollment: 6,623

Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (In-State): $12,989

Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (Out-of-State): $22,992

6-year graduation rate: 39%

Retention rate: 74%

Early-career Median pay: $57,700

Mid-career Median pay: $96,700

Two student loan changes that kicked in July 1 will hit some HBCUs particularly hard. One involves the Parent PLUS loan program. Previously, parents could borrow directly from Uncle Sam up to the full cost of their children’s undergraduate program not covered by other grants or loans. But new parent borrowers are now limited to $20,500 per year of borrowing with a lifetime limit per undergraduate of $65,000. That could affect the more expensive private HBCUs.

“We’ve had a huge enrollment surge over the last three years,” exalts Darrell K. Williams, president of Virginia’s Hampton University, ranked #5 among private HBCUs. Between 2022 and 2025, total enrollment grew 46%. But growth and affordability are pulling in opposite directions right now, and Hampton’s leadership doesn’t pretend otherwise.

“We’re definitely hearing from students and parents and other family members about the challenges that [the new law] has resulted in,” says Barbara Inman, Hampton’s vice president for student success and enrollment management. The school has responded by partnering with private lenders as part of what Inman calls a “comprehensive plan”—early and repeated communication with families; connections to outside funding; and “Taking Care of Business” sessions that walk parents of undergraduates through their options before the bills come due.

The other big loan change affects graduate students. Previously, under the Grad PLUS program, they too could borrow their full costs. But grad students starting their programs after July 1 are limited to $20,500 a year of borrowing ($100,000 over all their grad studies) or $50,000 a year ($200,000 in total) if they’re in “professional” programs, such as those for doctors, lawyers, dentists, veterinarians and pharmacists. Under final rules issued by the Department of Education, graduate programs educating teachers, social workers and nurses (even nurse practitioners) don’t count as professional and so don’t qualify for the higher borrowing limits. (A court has temporarily blocked the government from excluding nurses.)

Hampton also has a variety of masters and PhD programs, and enrollment in those, particularly in education and nursing, are already showing signs of strain, Williams reports.

Alabama’s Tuskegee University, the #6 ranked private HBCU, has been responding to the federal funding overhaul with what President Mark Brown calls a “gainful employment mindset.” He traces the 145-year-old university’s approach back to its founder and first president, Booker T. Washington. “Booker T.’s answer to that was this intersection between training and education,” Brown says, describing how Washington had students build the very classrooms they studied in. “You had to come up with a way to use the hand, the heart and the head in order to get out of Tuskegee.” Hence, he says, Tuskegee emphasizes internships and professional certifications–even more important these days as hiring of new grads lags.

Tuskegee is the only HBCU with a veterinary school and is known for training engineers and pilots. So Brown, a Tuskegee alum and retired Air Force Major General, is asking employers who need chemical engineers or veterinarians to help remove financial barriers before students graduate, not after. “You can call it philanthropy, or you can call it impact investment,” he says, comparing it to how the Air Force pays for a cadet’s education in exchange for a service commitment. Tuskegee already has agreements along those lines with companies and federal agencies, including scholarships funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that are tied to post-graduation work placements.

Brown is playing another financing angle, too. Before becoming Tuskegee’s president in 2024, he worked with private equity billionaire Robert F. Smith on the Student Freedom Initiative, a non-profit Smith seeded in 2020 with a $50 million gift and a mission of reducing the debt burden on HBCU graduates. This year’s incoming Tuskegee veterinary medicine students, who are subject to the new federal loan limits, will be part of a pilot project that will make up for reduced federal loan limits with loans funded by the Smith-backed group.

The structure is built to outlast any one gift: “You don’t pay it back to a bank. You don’t pay it back to Robert Smith,” Brown says. “You pay it back to a fund, and the fund continues to exist for that school, so that the next student can also get [a loan].” Brown notes the model is appropriate for fields like veterinary medicine because default risk for these students is low. He expects other HBCUs are quietly building similar pilot loan programs of their own, as they scramble to adapt and survive.

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