This summer, HOPE joined leaders, advocates, and partners at the United Negro College Fund’s UNITE in Atlanta to discuss an issue that has long shaped the financial health of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs): ensuring these institutions have access to the capital and resources needed to sustain and expand their impact.
The conversation reinforced a central point from HOPE’s experience across the Deep South. HBCUs are significant economic and community anchors, but their ability to invest in facilities, strengthen operations, and pursue long-term growth is often constrained by limited access to flexible capital. Through partnerships, technical assistance, and capital, community development financial institutions (CDFIs) can help address that gap.
This role as both a capital provider and community partner is reflected in HOPE’s growing engagement with HBCUs across the region. This year, HOPE has deepened its partnerships with HBCUs through a Financial Empowerment and Business Resource Forum with Alcorn State’s School of Business in the spring; a HOPE Day at Stillman College; an appearance on the national stage at UNCF UNITE in Atlanta this summer; and, this Labor Day weekend, title sponsorship of the HOPE Labor Day Classic, Jackson State’s season-opening football game. HOPE has another HOPE Day scheduled for Hinds Community College in Utica on September 15.
This blog summarizes HOPE’s presentation at this summer’s UNITE conference, including notable insights into the economic case for investing in HBCUs, the underlying resource gap for these critical institutions, and the power of partnership in scaling investments in them.
The Economic Case for Investing in HBCUs
HBCUs serve as vital anchors of opportunity, producing generations of Black professionals while driving economic and civic impact in the communities they serve. UNCF research shows that 80 percent of Black judges, 50 percent of Black doctors, and 40 percent of Black engineers in the country are HBCU graduates.1 Collectively, HBCUs generate $14.8 billion in annual economic impact and support more than 134,000 jobs, many of which are within the very communities they serve.2 HBCU students also report higher levels of civic engagement and social agency than their peers; nearly half score in the highest tier, reflecting the environments these institutions foster.3 See Figure 1. With deeper capital investment, HBCUs are positioned to expand their capacity to train the next generation of Black judges, doctors, and engineers and to drive economic mobility for the students and communities they serve.
Figure 1: HBCU Impact by the Numbers
Interconnected Inequities Create Resource Gaps
Despite their impact, HBCUs face interconnected challenges related to public funding, institutional capacity, and endowment resources. Together, these pressures constrain their ability to meet immediate needs and to invest in long-term priorities.
Public funding dependence
Public HBCUs rely on federal, state, and local funding for 54 percent of their total revenue, compared to roughly one-third for other colleges.4 That concentration leaves them particularly vulnerable to federal funding disruptions at a time when discretionary grants for minority-serving institutions have already been canceled and restored on different terms. These funding gaps limit HBCUs’ ability to modernize facilities, expand student services, and build the research infrastructure needed to compete for grants. CDFIs can help finance facilities and community development projects. Coordinating these resources can help HBCUs pursue campus improvements while keeping borrowing aligned with their repayment capacity.
Institutional capacity and public investment
Historical funding disparities at the state level have also constrained capacity. A 2023 federal analysis identified more than $12 billion in state funding disparities between public land-grant HBCUs and their predominantly white land-grant counterparts from 1987 through 2020.5 The estimate reflects what the affected institutions would have received with equal state funding per student. Those resources could have supported infrastructure, student services, and the capacity to compete for research grants.
These disparities extend to institutions’ ability to recover costs associated with research and other federally funded activities. The top twenty HBCUs operate at an average indirect cost rate of 50 percent, compared with 58.5 percent at the top-funded predominantly white institutions (PWIs), recovering less overhead to reinvest in their own infrastructure, even as 83 percent of their students are Pell Grant-eligible, compared to 34 percent nationally.6
Endowment inequities
Public PWIs have 3.5 times the per-student endowment of public HBCUs.7 Endowments compound over generations; a gap this size is the accumulated weight of decades of underinvestment. In 2019, HBCUs had roughly $3.9 million in endowments.8 Today, the combined endowments of every HBCU in the country, more than 100 institutions, total roughly $6 billion.9 By contrast, Harvard alone holds $56.9 billion.10 Yet Harvard’s endowment is not the largest comparison in higher education. The University of Texas/Texas A&M Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) oversees $67.9 billion, more than 10 times the combined endowments of all HBCUs.11 See Figure 2.
Figure 2: One School and One State System vs. Every HBCU Combined
Proof Across the Deep South
Across the Deep South, HOPE has invested over $141 million in HBCU partners through capital and operating support. See Figure 3. At Talladega College, a $15 million working capital loan provided the financial flexibility needed to stabilize operations and advance the institution’s long-term strategic plan. The college generates $27.8 million in total economic impact and supports 348 jobs. This capital support positions Talladega to sustain its economic and community impact.12 At Fisk University, $8.5 million was invested to modernize the library and renovate Driscoll House to host the John Lewis Center for Social Justice. At Tougaloo College, $12.7 million was allocated to Holmes Hall and critical water and sewer infrastructure. At Oakwood University, $7 million was used to fund a primary care clinic, a fresh-food marketplace, and an expanded auditorium.13
Figure 3: HOPE’s HBCU Investment Portfolio
HOPE structures these investments to meet institutions where they are, in markets conventional capital has often bypassed, with terms shaped around each institution’s mission and repayment capacity.
How HOPE Partners with HBCUs
HOPE’s model combines three interconnected pillars, capital access, technical assistance, and investment resources, to help HBCUs address immediate needs and pursue long-term priorities. Together, these three pillars allow HOPE’s HBCU partnerships to build on each investment over time. A loan becomes a capacity-building relationship, and a capacity-building relationship becomes a magnet for additional capital.
Financing reflects each institution’s circumstances, with terms structured around project needs and repayment capacity. This financing comes with technical assistance that goes beyond the transaction. HOPE brings grant identification support, financial modeling, and compliance capacity to its HBCU partners. This capacity-building work can turn a single loan into an ongoing relationship. That is often what determines whether an institution can execute a turnaround plan once the capital arrives, not just whether it can secure the capital in the first place. This work helps HBCUs translate funding into achievable plans and manage projects beyond the initial transaction.
HOPE also uses tools such as New Markets Tax Credits to attract private investment into eligible HBCU projects. Through investment capital, HOPE helps HBCUs attract resources beyond their own balance sheets. Combining these resources can expand the scope of campus and community improvements while reducing reliance on any single funding source.
These partnerships offer a path from immediate financing needs to sustainable institutional investment. Their long-term value depends on realistic operating plans, manageable repayment obligations, and ongoing public and philanthropic support. HOPE’s role is to help institutions navigate those conditions while advancing the priorities they define.
HOPE Is Not Alone: A National Pattern
HOPE pursues its mission to expand investments in HBCUs alongside other CDFIs. At UNITE 2026, HOPE CEO Bill Bynum joined fellow CDFI leaders Martin Eakes of Self-Help Credit Union and Patricia Smith of Reinvestment Fund for a panel titled “Capital That Builds Community: CDFIs, HBCUs, and the Future of Local Investment.” The panel examined how CDFIs can unlock capital, strengthen local economies, and support HBCUs as anchors of community development, institutional growth, and regional opportunity. The discussion highlighted how the individual efforts of HOPE, Self-Help, and Reinvestment Fund are connected and reflect a broader national approach to CDFI-HBCU partnerships. See Figure 4.
In Durham, North Carolina, Self-Help Credit Union’s HBCU Promise+ initiative now serves 34 HBCUs across its four-state footprint. In 2025, Self-Help launched a three-pillar Legacy Program built directly on input from HBCU presidents and board members: direct lending for construction and operating needs, a cohort-based technical assistance program, and a pathway connecting HBCU communities to homeownership and financial coaching. Self-Help is targeting $200 million in new sector investment within two years.14
In Philadelphia, Reinvestment Fund has worked with HBCUs since 2018 and has disbursed more than $50 million to date. In 2023, it launched a dedicated $25 million HBCU Brilliance Fund, seeded by investors including the Kresge Foundation and Lumina Impact Ventures. The structured cohort model pairs up to $1 million in financing with $40,000 in grants per school.15
Figure 4: CDFI Investment in HBCUs: A National Pattern
From UNITE to What’s Next
HOPE’s HBCU investment model shows that CDFI capital, paired with technical assistance, serves as durable infrastructure rather than a stopgap measure. This evidence shows that when capital aligns with mission and community, institutions stabilize and communities build wealth.
As HOPE heads into the Labor Day Classic and continues to deepen its partnerships with Alcorn State and other HBCUs across the Deep South, the themes raised at UNITE continue to guide this work. CDFI-HBCU partnerships are demonstrating how mission-aligned capital and technical assistance can help institutions strengthen operations, invest in their campuses, and expand their economic impact. The growing investments by HOPE, Self-Help, and Reinvestment Fund demonstrate that this approach is gaining momentum nationally and creating opportunities to strengthen HBCUs and the communities they serve.
Footnotes
- UNCF, Transforming Futures: The Economic Engine of HBCUs, 2024, available at https://uncf.org/hbcuimpactreport/2024 ↩︎
- Id. ↩︎
- Castro Samayoa A, Stolzenberg EB, Zimmerman HB and Gasman M (2018) Understanding Black Students’ Social Agency at Historically Black Colleges: Data From a National Survey. Front. Educ. 3:94. ↩︎
- American Council on Education; U.S. Department of Education, September 2025; National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), 2025. ↩︎
- “Secretaries of Education, Agriculture Call on Governors to Equitably Fund Land-Grant HBCUs.” 2023. Usda.Gov. September 18, 2023. https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2023/09/18/secretaries-education-agriculture-call-governors-equitably-fund-land-grant-hbcus. ↩︎
- Moorer, Regina. “Stronger Together: How CDFIs and HBCUs Build Lasting Change.” HOPE Policy Institute, August 21, 2025. https://hopepolicy.org/stronger-together-how-cdfis-and-hbcus-build-lasting-change/. ↩︎
- U.S. Department of Education, Title III program data; Education Law Center, January 2026; The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS), 2024; White House Council of Economic Advisers, May 2024. ↩︎
- Perry, Andre M. and Anthony Barr, A Call to Action for HBCU Investment, Brookings Metro, August 2022, commissioned by Reinvestment Fund. ↩︎
- “UNCF Head on How Historic $70M Donation Will Bolster HBCUs.” 2025. PBS News. September 24, 2025. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/uncf-head-on-how-historic-70m-donation-will-bolster-hbcus. ↩︎
- Harvard University. “Endowment.” Harvard University. Accessed August 31, 2026. https://www.harvard.edu/about/endowment/. ↩︎
- Frangione, Stephen. 2026. “The Largest US University Endowments (2026): How the Endowment Model Invests.” Praxis Rock Advisors. June 26, 2026. https://praxisrock.com/insights/largest-us-university-endowments. ↩︎
- UNCF, Transforming Futures, 2024; Talladega College, October 2024. ↩︎
- HOPE Enterprise Corporation investment records; UNCF, Transforming Futures, 2024. ↩︎
- Self-Help Credit Union, “HBCU Support & Investment” and “HBCU Promise+ Legacy Program,” 2026. https://www.self-help.org/what-we-do/we-serve/hbcu-support-investment ↩︎
- Reinvestment Fund, “HBCU Brilliance Initiative,” reinvestment.com; Kresge Foundation, “Kresge invests millions into Reinvestment Fund’s HBCU Brilliance Initiative,” 2024; Essence, “Reinvestment Fund Invests Up To $1 Million Per School In New HBCU Brilliance Initiative,” 2026. ↩︎