1997: Humphries enrolls nearly 11,000 students, freshmen SAT scores above national average

General Motors ad that ran between 1989 and 1990

Back in Fall 1997, Florida A&M University had 10,998 students. That’s more than any historically black college or university (HBCU) today. North Carolina A&T University (NCA&T) was the largest single campus HBCU in Fall 2015 with 10,852 students.

NCA&T Chancellor Harold Martin boosted his school’s enrollment in Fall 2015 and expects more enrollment growth in Fall 2016.

FAMU’s enrollment in Fall 2015 dropped to 9,920 (down from 10,233 in Fall 2014) under President Elmira Mangum. That cost FAMU $9M+ from tuition and fee losses. FAMU expects to lose about another $10M due to its projected loss of 920 students in 2016-2017.

Some defenders of the Mangum administration aren’t bothered by the continuing enrollment decline because they don’t think the university is up-to-the-task of reversing it through the recruitment of high-achieving students.

But Humphries succeeded in increasing enrollment AND expanding the number of high-achieving freshmen at the same time.

A 1998 Associated Press (AP) article that covered FAMU’s rise to nearly 11,000 students reported that: “Average freshmen SAT scores have jumped from about 700 to 1036. Nationally, the average for black students is 956. For all students nationally, it’s 1016. Enrollment has more than doubled since Humphries took over to almost 11,000.”

Dillard University President Walter Kimbrough said that even though HBCUs were hurt by the overhaul of the federal financial aid program in 2011, they all should be able to increase their enrollments in 2016-2017. He stated that one reason for this is that HBCUs have received increased interest from black students who are having second thoughts about predominantly white colleges in light of the racial incidents on some of those campuses.

“I expect to see an increase in HBCU enrollment throughout the nation,” Kimbrough said in an article The Shreveport Times published on June 29th. “People are looking at HBCUs differently now. Do I want to go to school at a place where I might be in a hostile environment?...It’s going to be harder for places to diversify their student body because of the negative things that have happened, and HBCUs have benefited from that.”

Humphries knew how to compete with predominantly white colleges for the best black students.

“We get good kids because we outwork the competition,” Humphries said in the 1998 AP article. “If the competition gets lazy, we’ll snatch the students from them. We will win.”

No excuse is acceptable for the FAMU enrollment decline in Fall 2015 or the expected decline in Fall 2016. The Mangum administration should have worked harder to recruit enough high-achieving students to prevent multi-million dollar tuition and fee losses.