ORANGEBURG, S.C. — The Thurgood Marshall College Fund, United Negro College Fund and Partnership for Education Advancement are distributing $60 million to HBCUs across the country through the HBCU Transformation Project. South Carolina State University and Claflin University are among 20 universities who have been selected to take part in this collaboration.
“Overall, this is not just to give individual grants to these institutions for specific projects, it’s also to help build the overall strength and capacity of the institutions to compete in the 21st century against institutions that have far more resources and aren’t addressing the same students that attend historically black colleges," said United Negro College Fund President and CEO Michael Lomax.
Out of the $60 million, about $4 million will be going to HBCU's located in South Carolina, including Benedict College in Columbia. Organization leaders say this money will be used to support the sustainability of HBCU's by helping to increase enrollment and graduation rates.
“At South Carolina State for example, as Michael stated, this aligns with their strategic goals to increase the number of students from South Carolina, enrolling at South Carolina State," said Thurgood Marshall College Fund President and CEO Harry Williams.
The mission of this project is to address historic inequities at higher education institutions. This was made possible with a grant received from the Blue Meridian Partners.
“That’s a group of strategic impact investors, individuals, wealthy individuals from around the country who recognize that historically black colleges have been underfunded in the past both with public funds but especially with private funds," said Lomax.
Lomax says as the schools use the funding given to make improvements, additional support may be granted from the organization.