Jealous, Abrams, Gillum have different plans for HBCUs in their states

Back on September 13th, Ben Jealous, Stacey Abrams, and Andrew Gillum met during the 5000 Role Models of Excellence Project Panel at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Conference in Washington, DC.

They are respectively the Democratic gubernatorial nominees for Maryland, Georgia, and Florida.

Two of the three are graduates of historically black colleges or universities (HBCUs). Abrams is an alumna of Spelman College and Gillum and is an alumnus of Florida A&M University.

The three nominees all have different plans for the HBCUs in their states.

Ben Jealous (Maryland)

Jealous has promised billions in new spending for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) if he wins the election.

“As governor, Jealous will invest $2 billion into Maryland’s HBCUs as a settlement to the lawsuit over the State’s historic underfunding of these institutions,” an April 28, 2018 press release by Jealous’ campaign announced.

A ruling in The Coalition for Equity and Excellence in Maryland Higher Education, et al. v. Maryland Higher Education Commission, et al. case declared that public HBCUs in the state were entitled to monetary damages due to the many years of underfunding. Incumbent Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican, has only offered $100 million.

Maryland has four public HBCUs: Bowie State University, Coppin State University, Morgan State University, and University of Maryland, Eastern Shore. The state doesn’t have any private HBCUs.

Stacey Abrams (Georgia)

Abrams has pledged to boost state spending for HBCUs in Georgia if she wins the governorship.

The “Higher Education” section of her campaign website includes a paragraph with the heading “Increase Support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.” It promises more money for capital projects at HBCUs among other forms of aid.

Georgia has three public HBCUs: Albany State University, Fort Valley State University, and Savannah State University. It also has seven private HBCUs: Clark Atlanta University, Interdenominational Theological Center, Morehouse College, Morehouse School of Medicine, Morris Brown College, Paine College, and Spelman College.

Andrew Gillum (Florida)

Gillum hasn't announced any plans to seek new state earmarks for HBCUs in Florida. Florida has three private HBCUs: Bethune-Cookman University, Edward Waters College, and Florida Memorial University. FAMU is the only public HBCU in the state.

But back in August, Gillum did say that he wants a big change in the performance-based funding system for public universities that would help FAMU. He addressed the issue in a questionnaire from the Sarasota Herald Tribune.

“In its current format, the performance funding model for our state universities is exacerbating inequalities and unfairly punishing some universities, including Florida’s largest institution of higher education dedicated to serving people of color,” Gillum said. “Not only have some universities received zero state performance funding, but an individual university’s own budget is harmed by not receiving back its own share of institutional investment. That’s wrong. All of our state universities should have a fair chance to succeed — and a one-size-fits-all approach isn’t doing that. It makes no sense to pit universities with different missions against each other — our state college system performance funding of comparing improvement against own past performance is much more fair.”

FAMU was denied new state investment PBF funds in 2015-2016, 2017-2018, and 2018-2019 under the current model.