A new federal Farm Bill which passed last year could provide up to $400 million for HBCUs like FAMU. FAMU graduates U.S. Rep. Al Lawson (FL-05) and U.S Rep. David Scott (GA-13) who serve on the Agriculture Committee in the U.S. House of Representative were instrumental in tucking away millions for historically black land-grant universities, and several key policy tweaks that the HBCU community had long sought.
Some of the significant provisions Lawson and Scott were able to include in the bill are:
Millions in new scholarship funding
The bill includes about $80 million in mandatory funding for new scholarships at each of the 1890 land-grant universities, meaning each will have about $4.2 million in new funding for scholarships to lure students over the next five years.
A step toward forcing states to better match funding
States are required to match federal funding for land-grant universities, but many HBCUs have not been getting that money. A 2013 report by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities found that from 2010-12, 61 percent of 1890 land-grant institutions did not receive 100 percent of the one-to-one matching funds from their respective states for extension or research funding. The bill requires states to report to Congress how much funding they’re providing both historically black land-grants and their predominantly white peers.
New Centers of Excellence
$50 million to establish at least three new centers of excellence on HBCU campuses with specific focuses, such as food security. The secretary of Agriculture is tasked with picking the campuses.
Allows HBCUs to carryover unspent money like PWIs
Stripped a decades-old provision from the bill that mandated 1890 land-grant universities — established by Congress that year and include about 20 public HBCUs — could only carry over a small chunk of their extension funding if it wasn't used in a calendar year. The schools have only been able to carry over 20 percent of the funding, which is meant to help schools use their research to address public needs. The rule didn’t apply to predominantly white land-grants.
The new bill was signed into law late last year.