This led me to explore the underlying enrollment data as published by the U.S. Department of Education in the Digest of Education Statistics. Sure enough, the latest reported data (2017-2018) show total enrollments rose from 292,083 the previous year to 298,138, an increase of 2.1%. But it was not really that much of an upsurge in enrollment from black students fleeing to the congenial environment of HBCUs. Fully 45% of the HBCU enrollment growth came from increasing numbers of non-black students. Indeed, the number of black male students actually declined.
Was 2017-18 a fluke? I went back seven years, to 2010-11. From 2010 to 2017, total HBCU enrollment fell by more than 28,000, or about 9%. But that statistic disguises two other phenomena. First, black enrollment at the HBCUs fell far more, over 39,000 or nearly 15 %. Second, non-black enrollment grew substantially, rising more than 17%. Historically black colleges are becoming decidedly less black. Now nearly one-fourth of students at HBCUs are not African-American.