Building on a legacy of transformation

Throughout their history, HBCUs have been models of creative problem-solving and doing more with less. The HBCU Transformation Project seeks to ensure our institutions have the resources they need to apply these problem-solving skills to scale their already-significant outcomes.

In an era defined by higher education institutions confronted by similar challenges in enrollment, retention, graduation rates and serving diverse student bodies, the ultimate value of this project is not only the progress we can achieve on our own, but how the approaches and solutions we model for the rest of the nation can lift all of higher education.

Within this networked approach, the role of Ed Advancement, TMCF and UNCF is to provide HBCUs with expertise, financial and technical resources to:

Build a permanent culture of transformation at all HBCUs—one focused on sustained, ongoing improvement in social and economic-mobility outcomes for our primarily Black students and communities.

Model what’s possible using a networked approach to transformation and operationalizing shared best practices.

Shape innovations for the rest of higher education in educating learners who comprise the majority of HBCU student bodies: first-generation college goers from low-income communities.

The progress among our partner institutions even in these early stages of the HBCU Transformation Project is real and measurable.

Institutional Leadership

The partners powering transformation

We are an unprecedented coalition of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, Partnership for Education Advancement and United Negro College Fund, leveraging our expertise in transformation and our trusted relationships with HBCUs.

Blue Meridian Partners, a pioneering philanthropic model for finding and funding scalable solutions to the problems that limit economic and social mobility for America’s young people and families, invested $60 million in 2021 to help launch The HBCU Transformation Project.  Based on progress demonstrated in the initial investment, Blue Meridian committed an additional $124 million, more than tripling its initial support. Blue Meridian also provides strategic counsel to coalition leaders.

The investment from Blue Meridian Partners is adding firepower to the momentum fueled by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, JP Morgan Chase, Capital One, Walmart Foundation, Macquarie Foundation, Strada Education Network, ECMC Foundation and others who see the untapped potential of our networked approach to institutional transformation and change.

As we move forward and expand our work, we seek others to join this historic effort to forge a new era for higher education.

  • Established in 1987, the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) is the nation’s largest organization exclusively representing the Black College Community. TMCF member schools include publicly-supported Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), six Historically Black Community Colleges (HBCCs) and Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs). Publicly supported HBCUs enroll over 80% of all students attending HBCUs. Through scholarships, capacity building and research initiatives, innovative programs, and strategic partnerships, TMCF is a vital resource in the K-12 and higher education spaces. The organization is also a source for top employers seeking top talent for competitive internships and good jobs.

  • The Partnership for Education Advancement (Ed Advancement), founded in 2018, is an organization dedicated to strengthening Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other mission focused colleges and universities. Our team is a diverse group of highly experienced professionals with wide-ranging expertise in technology, project management, operations, risk management, vendor management, and many functional areas within higher education, including enrollment, student success, data infrastructure, and campus operations.

    Ed Advancement utilizes its expertise to provide scalable infrastructure, operations, and technology-focused solutions to HBCUs to help them better serve their students. These student success focused solutions increase enrollment, retention, graduation rates, and post-graduation outcomes which can meaningfully address the racial wealth gap and overall socioeconomic justice on a national level.

  • United Negro College Fund (UNCF) is the nation’s largest and most effective minority education organization and provider of scholarships. To support the development of Black institutions of higher education and support their transformation and continual innovation, UNCF created the Institute for Capacity Building (ICB) in 2006, which now provides a range of direct support and technical assistance to 42 Black colleges and universities and indirect support to the entire network of 102 Historically Black Colleges and Universities and 64 predominantly Black institutions.

  • Blue Meridian Partners is a pioneering philanthropic model for finding and funding scalable solutions to the problems that limit economic and social mobility for America’s young people and families in poverty. We provide transformative capital paired with capacity-building support and strategic advice, empowering visionary leaders to dream bigger and vastly expand their impact, influence, and reach. Our partnership of leading philanthropists pool resources to invest more efficiently and effectively than any single funder could alone.

Partner Institutions

The intense efforts of the HBCU Transformation Project’s 40 institutional partners—that purposefully range in size and geographic location, and include both public and private institutions—is setting up models for engaging and catalyzing the transformation of all 102 HBCUs nationwide.

  • Alabama State University

  • Benedict College

  • Bethune-Cookman University

  • Bowie State University

  • Claflin University

  • Clark Atlanta University

  • Delaware State University

  • Dillard University

  • Edward Waters University

  • Elizabeth City State University

  • Florida A&M University

  • Florida Memorial University

  • Grambling State University

  • Hampton University

  • Huston-Tillotson University

  • Jackson State University

  • Jarvis Christian University

  • Johnson C. Smith University

  • Lane College

  • Miles College

  • Morehouse College

  • Norfolk State University

  • North Carolina A&T University

  • Oakwood University

  • Philander Smith College

  • Prairie View A&M University

  • Savannah State University

  • Shaw University

  • South Carolina State University

  • Spelman College

  • Stillman College

  • Talladega College

  • Texas Southern University

  • Tougaloo College

  • Tuskegee University

  • University of Maryland - Eastern Shore

  • Virginia State University

  • Voorhees University

  • Wiley College

  • Winston-Salem State University

The HBCU legacy of doing more with less

Despite historic underinvestment and while enrolling almost twice the percentage of low-income students than predominantly white institutions, HBCUs have had and continue to have an outsized impact on the nation and especially Black America, driving Black economic advancement, supporting the growth of the Black middle class, and graduating history makers.

Despite their higher need and lack of resources, HBCUs continue to provide critical access to higher education to their communities while producing student outcomes and economic mobility results on par with the richest, most successful predominantly white institutions.

If not for Black colleges and universities…

The Civil Rights movement wouldn’t have gone as far.

Among the heroes of the 1950s and 60s movement, many of the leading lights were HBCU graduates, including: 

  • Stokely Carmichael (Howard University)

  • Medgar Evers (Alcorn State)

  • Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Morehouse College)

  • Rosa Parks (Alabama State)

Leaders at the Head of the Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. in August 1963. Image via United States Information Agency.

If not for Black colleges and universities…

Black arts wouldn't be a global phenomenon.

The Harlem Renaissance, Spike Lee Joints, The Black Panther movement and countless more. 

The brilliant heights of HBCU grads cannot be contained within any art form, industry, or even national boundary.

Creatives like Sean P. Diddy Combs, Oprah Winfrey and Will Packer mastered their art at HBCUs, giving meaning to the words of Howard University alum Toni Morrison: "Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.