The Quiet Collapse of HBCU-Based Credit Unions — and What Michigan State’s $8.26 Billion Juggernaut Reveals About the Cost

Posted on February 6, 2026 by | Leave a comment

We went from bartering to dollars. We can go from capitalism to whatever may come next. But without institutional ownership of the institutions that control the circulation of the medium, without the institutional ownership that protects our economic interest, and without the institutional ownership that reduces financial risk in our community, then power and empowerment will always be reduced to the fantasy of freedom we tell ourselves with raised fists. – William A. Foster, IV

There is a financial story unfolding across the historically Black college and university landscape that is not receiving nearly enough attention. It is not a story about endowments, donor campaigns, or legislative funding fights — though it touches all of those. It is a story about credit unions: small, member-owned financial institutions that were once tethered to HBCUs as a gateway to financial inclusion for Black students, faculty, and alumni. One by one, they are disappearing. And the speed with which they have vanished over the past five years should alarm anyone who has spent even a passing moment thinking about African American wealth-building.

In 2020, HBCU Money published a comprehensive directory of all eleven HBCU-based credit unions in the country. The list was not long to begin with. Eleven institutions, spread across the nation, collectively holding $88.7 million in total assets and serving roughly 14,953 members. Those numbers were already modest bordering on fragile but they represented something tangible: a constellation of Black-controlled financial institutions with deep roots in the communities they served.

Today, that number has dropped to six.

Five HBCU-based credit unions have either closed or been acquired since that 2020 snapshot. Howard University Employees Federal Credit Union in Washington, D.C., which held $10.1 million in assets making it the fourth-largest in the group is no longer operational as an independent institution. Savannah State Teachers Federal Credit Union in Georgia, Tennessee State University’s credit union, and Shaw University’s federal credit union in Raleigh, North Carolina, the smallest of the group at just $400,000 in assets, have all ceased to exist as independent entities.

And then there is Prairie View A&M University Federal Credit Union, a case study in how these institutions disappear not with a clean closure, but with an acquisition that raises questions nobody seems willing to ask out loud. Prairie View FCU, which held $3.7 million in assets as of 2020, was absorbed by Cy-Fair Federal Credit Union, the credit union tied to Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District in the Houston suburbs. Prairie View FCU now operates as a division of Cy-Fair FCU, retaining its name and its single location at the foot of the PVAMU campus but operating entirely under Cy-Fair’s infrastructure, branding, and control. The Cy-Fair FCU website frames the arrangement in the warmest possible terms celebrating PVFCU’s “remarkable 85-year history” and its founding in 1937 by sixteen pioneers who created a financial institution to serve employees of what was then Texas’s first state-supported college for African Americans. The language is reverent. The reality is that an 85-year-old Black institution, one built by and for a Black community, is now a subsidiary of a school district credit union. This in and of itself should be acutely embarrassing to the HBCU community. A school district lording over a higher education institution community’s financial interest.

The choice of Cy-Fair FCU as the acquiring institution deserves scrutiny. Cypress-Fairbanks ISD is the third-largest school district in Texas, but its relationship with its Black community has been, to put it charitably, troubled. In 2020, the district was forced to confront documented racial disparities in its own student discipline where African American students made up 18.5 percent of enrollment but accounted for 38.7 percent of suspensions in the 2018-19 school year. The district commissioned an equity audit, and the results confirmed what critics had long alleged: districtwide discrepancies in academics, discipline, and staff representation along racial lines. White students consistently outperformed Black peers on standardized tests and graduated at higher rates, while the teaching staff remained overwhelmingly white — 66 percent white in 2019-20, even as the student body had become far more diverse.

The situation reached a national flashpoint in January 2022 when Cy-Fair ISD trustee Scott Henry, who had won his seat on a platform centered on opposing critical race theory, made remarks at a board work session that were widely condemned as racist. Henry openly questioned the value of hiring more Black teachers, pointing to Houston ISD’s higher percentage of Black educators and linking it to that district’s dropout rate — a claim that multiple studies and education researchers have thoroughly debunked. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, then Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, the NAACP, and the ACLU of Texas all called for his resignation. Henry was fired from his position at software company Splunk but, because he was elected, could not be removed from the board by his colleagues. His remarks, and the social media trail of racially charged posts that preceded them, painted a portrait of the ideological environment within Cy-Fair ISD’s governance.

It is into this environment that Prairie View FCU, an institution founded specifically to serve a historically Black university community was folded. The Cy-Fair FCU website does not dwell on any of this context. It offers a “Panther Card” debit card that channels a portion of spending back to PVAMU athletics, and it lists enhanced services like video banking and remote deposit. These are not trivial upgrades for an institution that previously lacked basic digital banking capabilities. But the upgrades come at a cost: Prairie View FCU’s independence, its board, and its autonomy as a Black-controlled financial institution are gone. What remains is a branding exercise — a name on a building, a division page on someone else’s website.

Five institutions, gone in roughly four years. What remains is a smaller, more concentrated group of survivors. According to 2025 data from the National Credit Union Administration, the six remaining HBCU-based credit unions now hold a combined $76.8 million in total assets and serve 11,588 members. Southern Teachers & Parents Federal Credit Union in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, leads the group at $28.9 million in assets. Florida A&M University Federal Credit Union in Tallahassee follows closely at $28.5 million. Virginia State University Federal Credit Union in South Chesterfield, Virginia, has seen meaningful growth, reaching $13.3 million in assets, a 54.4 percent increase since 2016. Councill Credit Union at Alabama A&M in Normal, Alabama, clocks in at $2.5 million, though it has lost roughly 28 percent of its assets over the same period. Arkansas A&M College Federal Credit Union in Pine Bluff holds $1.9 million, and Xavier University’s Credit Union in New Orleans, one of the smallest surviving institutions, manages $1.7 million.

The trajectory is not encouraging. Even among the survivors, total membership has declined by more than seven percent since 2016, dropping from 12,467 members to 11,588. The average assets per member across the group have risen — from $5,189 to $5,611 — but that figure is almost entirely a function of assets outpacing a shrinking membership base, not a sign of organic financial health or deepening engagement. These are institutions hemorrhaging members even as they struggle to grow. And that hemorrhaging did not catch everyone off guard. Back in February 2012, HBCU Money published a detailed proposal outlining a path forward for these credit unions — not as isolated, single-branch institutions stumbling through each academic year, but as a unified financial force. The concept was straightforward in theory: consolidate the eleven HBCU-based credit unions into a single national institution, or at the very least forge a formal alliance that would pool resources, share technology infrastructure, and create economies of scale.

The 2012 proposal painted a picture of what that consolidated institution could look like. With access to the combined workforce of HBCUs — roughly 180,000 full and part-time employees — along with approximately 400,000 students, over a million alumni, the endowments of more than a hundred institutions, and the financial ecosystems of the communities surrounding each campus, a unified HBCU credit union would have been one of the most significant African American-controlled financial institutions in the country. It would have had the scale to offer affordable mortgages, student loans, small business financing, and a suite of services that, individually, none of these credit unions could ever dream of providing.

That merger never materialized. The alliance was never formed. And the consequences of that inaction are now playing out in real time as institutions that might have been strengthened by consolidation instead fold into obscurity. The reasons for the failure are familiar and deeply structural. HBCU administrations have historically been risk-averse when it comes to financial innovation, partly because of the precarious funding environments many of these schools operate in, and partly because of a broader cultural reluctance to prioritize financial infrastructure as a strategic institutional asset. The credit unions themselves lacked the technological sophistication and institutional support needed to compete in a rapidly evolving financial services landscape. Many of them did not have functional websites, mobile apps, or even basic debit card programs, amenities that any modern financial institution would consider non-negotiable. As the 2020 directory noted, the most glaring deficiency was a lack of FinTech investment. Without it, these credit unions were structurally incapable of retaining members whose financial needs matured beyond what a single-branch, limited-service institution could offer.

To understand just how far behind HBCU-based credit unions have fallen, it helps to look at what a university-based credit union can become when it is given the institutional support, technological investment, and long-term strategic commitment to grow. Michigan State University Federal Credit Union — MSUFCU — is that example. And the comparison is, frankly, staggering. MSUFCU, headquartered in East Lansing, Michigan, is the largest university-based credit union in the world. Founded in 1937 by eight faculty and staff members — its earliest records were kept in a desk drawer, it has grown into a financial powerhouse that, as of 2025, serves over 367,000 members and holds $8.26 billion in assets. It operates out of more than 30 branches across Michigan, has expanded into the Chicago metropolitan area, and employs over 1,300 people. It is not just a credit union; it is a regional financial institution by any standard measure.

Put that number next to the combined assets of every African American credit union in the country including the six remaining HBCU-based credit unions and the disparity becomes almost difficult to articulate. The six surviving HBCU-based credit unions hold, collectively, $76.8 million in assets. MSUFCU holds $8.26 billion. That means a single predominantly white university credit union holds more than 107 times the combined assets of every HBCU-based credit union still in existence. MSUFCU’s assets are not just larger than the combined total of HBCU credit unions they exceed the total assets of virtually all African American credit unions in the country. The gap is not a crack. It is a canyon.

MSUFCU did not arrive at this scale through magic or accident. It grew because Michigan State University invested in it. It grew because the institution was given the runway to expand its membership base from employees to students to alumni and to build out the technological and physical infrastructure that a modern credit union requires. It grew because it had the institutional backing to pursue mergers and acquisitions, absorbing smaller credit unions and even banks as it expanded its geographic footprint. Every strategic move MSUFCU has made over the past several decades — the branch expansions, the technology partnerships, the acquisition of McHenry Savings Bank and Algonquin State Bank in the Chicago area — reflects a long-term institutional vision that HBCU-based credit unions have never had the support or the organizational will to pursue. The contrast is not merely about money. It is about institutional commitment. It is about whether a university sees its credit union as a strategic asset, a vehicle for building generational wealth among its community or as an afterthought, a small office on the edge of campus that serves a fraction of the student body and operates with minimal oversight and fewer resources.

The 2025 NCUA data on the six surviving HBCU-based credit unions tells a story of incremental progress layered on top of structural decline. Virginia State University Federal Credit Union is the clearest success story in the group, growing its assets by 54.4 percent since 2016 from $8.6 million to $13.3 million and increasing its assets per member by 87.1 percent, from $3,742 to $7,001. Florida A&M University Federal Credit Union has also seen solid growth, with total assets rising 41.3 percent to $28.5 million, and membership expanding by 16.5 percent to 3,918 members. But these gains are exceptions, not the rule. Southern Teachers & Parents Federal Credit Union in Baton Rouge, the largest in the group, has grown its assets by only 2 percent since 2016, and its membership has fallen by 15.6 percent, dropping from 5,124 members to 4,326. It is holding steady on assets while quietly bleeding its membership base. Councill Credit Union at Alabama A&M has seen its assets shrink by nearly 28 percent since 2016, and its membership has fallen by over 30 percent. Arkansas A&M College Federal Credit Union has lost 22.7 percent of its assets. Xavier University’s credit union has contracted by 36.3 percent in assets and lost 5 percent of its membership. Across the group, the median asset change since 2016 is negative 10.3 percent. The median membership change is negative 10.3 percent as well. For every Virginia State that is growing, there are two or three institutions quietly shrinking toward irrelevance.

The average assets per member across all six institutions now stands at $5,611, up from $5,189 in 2016. That is a 12.5 percent increase — a number that sounds encouraging until you consider that MSUFCU’s assets per member, calculated from its $8.26 billion in assets and 367,000 members, comes to approximately $22,500. HBCU credit union members hold, on average, roughly one-quarter of the per-member asset value that an MSU credit union member does. The wealth-building capacity of these institutions is simply not comparable.

The collapse of five HBCU-based credit unions between 2020 and 2025 is not an isolated event. It is a symptom of a larger pattern in African American financial infrastructure one in which institutions that could, in theory, serve as engines of wealth circulation and community investment instead wither from neglect, underfunding, and a failure of institutional imagination. The 2012 proposal for a consolidated HBCU credit union was not a radical idea. It was a practical one. Credit union mergers are common across the industry. MSUFCU itself has pursued multiple mergers and acquisitions as a core part of its growth strategy. The tools, the regulatory framework, and the precedent all exist. What has been missing is the will on the part of HBCU administrations, alumni networks, and the broader African American institutional ecosystem to treat financial infrastructure with the same urgency that is applied to endowment campaigns or facility renovations.

The #BankBlack movement that surged during the social justice awakening of 2020 brought renewed attention to African American financial institutions, including credit unions. But attention without structural investment is temporary. The members who were inspired to open accounts at HBCU credit unions during that period appear, in many cases, to have drifted away once the cultural moment passed, a pattern visible in the continued membership declines across the group.

If the remaining six HBCU-based credit unions are to survive and if the broader ecosystem of African American credit unions is to grow rather than contract the conversation must shift from nostalgia to strategy. That means revisiting the merger and alliance models that were proposed over a decade ago. It means demanding that HBCUs treat their credit unions as institutional priorities, not afterthoughts. It means investing in the technological infrastructure that members now expect as a baseline. And it means reckoning honestly with the fact that, while MSUFCU serves as an aspirational model, it did not build $8.26 billion in assets overnight. It built them over nearly ninety years of sustained, intentional institutional support.

The clock is not on HBCU credit unions’ side. The five that have already closed will not reopen. But the six that remain still hold something valuable: a foothold. The question is whether the institutions and communities they serve will invest in preserving it or whether the quiet collapse will simply continue, one credit union at a time, until there are none left to save.

Disclaimer: This article was assisted by ClaudeAI.

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Giving Back to Those Who Give: How HBCU Communities Can Support Their Alumni Teachers

Posted on February 3, 2026 by | Leave a comment

The drums of Africa still beat in my heart. They will not let me rest while there is a single Negro boy or girl without a chance to prove his worth. – Mary McLeod Bethune

Every day, thousands of HBCU alumni stand in front of classrooms across America, shaping young minds and breaking cycles of poverty through education. These teachers carry forward the legacy of their alma maters, often working in the nation’s most underfunded schools with the fewest resources. Yet too often, they do so without the support of the very communities that benefited from similar dedication during their own educational journeys.

The numbers tell a powerful story. As of this writing, 1,690 HBCU alumni are actively seeking support on DonorsChoose, the popular crowdfunding platform for classroom projects. These aren’t outliers. They represent a significant cross-section of HBCU graduates who chose the noble, challenging profession of teaching. What’s more striking is where they teach and the conditions they face: 1,661 of them work in historically underfunded schools. That’s 98% of HBCU alumni teachers on the platform working in institutions starved of adequate resources.

The funding gap these teachers navigate is staggering. Of the 1,690 HBCU alumni teachers, 1,202 have projects with zero donations. They’ve submitted requests for books, supplies, technology, and basic classroom materials, and they’re waiting for someone to care enough to help. Additionally, 182 have never received funding for any project they’ve ever posted. These are educators who have repeatedly asked for support and been met with silence. Perhaps most telling: 1,555 teach in schools where more than half of students come from low-income households, the same communities many HBCUs were founded to serve.

HBCU alumni entering the teaching profession isn’t coincidental; it’s part of a rich tradition. Historically Black Colleges and Universities were established with a mission to educate those who had been systematically excluded from higher education. Many HBCUs began as teacher training institutions, recognizing that education would be the key to Black advancement and self-determination. Schools like Bennett College, Miles College, Tuskegee University, and Wiley University produced generations of teachers who returned to their communities to educate the next generation.

This tradition continues today. HBCU graduates are more likely than their peers from other institutions to teach in high-need schools, to work with predominantly African American student populations, and to stay in the profession despite its challenges. They bring cultural competence, high expectations, and a deep understanding of the systemic barriers their students face. They are, in many ways, continuing the work their institutions started: creating pathways to opportunity through education.

Yet the schools where they teach are chronically underfunded. Decades of inequitable school funding formulas, property tax-based education systems, and discriminatory resource allocation have created a two-tiered education system. HBCU alumni teachers often find themselves purchasing classroom supplies out of pocket, fundraising for basic necessities, and making impossible choices about which students get access to which resources.

There’s a moral imperative for HBCU alumni, families, organizations, and associations to support their fellow graduates who have chosen teaching. These educators are extending the mission of HBCUs into K-12 classrooms. When an HBCU alumna teaching third grade needs books for her classroom library, she’s doing the work of literacy development that HBCUs have championed for over a century. When an HBCU alumnus teaching high school chemistry needs lab equipment, he’s preparing the next generation of STEM professionals, many of whom will attend HBCUs themselves.

Supporting HBCU alumni teachers is also an investment in community wealth-building. Education remains one of the most reliable paths to economic mobility. The students these teachers serve are disproportionately Black and brown children from low-income families. Quality education, with adequate resources, can break cycles of poverty. When we fund a classroom project for an HBCU graduate teaching in Detroit, Atlanta, or rural Mississippi, we’re investing in future engineers, doctors, teachers, and leaders.

Moreover, there’s a pragmatic networking advantage. The HBCU community is uniquely positioned to support its own. Alumni associations already have infrastructure for giving. Fraternities and sororities have national reach and local chapters. HBCU families understand the value of these institutions and want to see their impact multiplied. By channeling even a fraction of philanthropic dollars toward HBCU alumni teachers, these networks can create measurable change in thousands of classrooms.

Supporting HBCU alumni teachers doesn’t require massive institutional change or million-dollar commitments, though those would certainly help. It starts with awareness and intentionality. There are concrete steps HBCU communities can take, starting with funding classroom projects on DonorsChoose. The platform makes it easy to search for HBCU alumni teachers. Alumni associations can create giving campaigns around Homecoming, Founders’ Day, or Giving Tuesday specifically to fund projects by graduates. A $50 donation can purchase books for a classroom library. A $200 donation can buy tablets for student learning. A $500 donation can transform a science lab. Individual alumni can adopt a teacher from their alma mater and commit to funding their projects annually.

Beyond direct funding, HBCU communities can create mentorship and professional development opportunities. Many HBCU alumni teachers work in isolation, without access to the kind of collegial support and professional growth opportunities their non-HBCU peers enjoy. Alumni associations can host virtual meetups, share teaching resources, or create affinity groups for teachers by subject area or grade level. Greek organizations can leverage their networks to connect teachers across cities and states. Experienced educators can mentor early-career teachers, helping them navigate challenges and avoid burnout.

Amplifying voices and celebrating work matters too. Social media campaigns highlighting HBCU alumni teachers, their innovative classroom practices, and their students’ achievements can build awareness and attract support. Alumni magazines can feature teacher profiles. Homecoming events can honor outstanding educators. This recognition matters not just for morale but for retention. Teaching is hard, underpaid work, and feeling seen and valued by one’s community makes a difference.

Perhaps most importantly, HBCU communities should support organizations that support teachers systemically. The Black Teacher Collaborative, an HBCU-founded and led organization, exemplifies this approach. Founded by educators from HBCUs, the Collaborative works to increase the number of Black teachers, improve their working conditions, and elevate their leadership in education policy. Supporting organizations like the Black Teacher Collaborative multiplies impact. They provide professional development, advocacy, research, and community-building that individual donations to classroom projects cannot. They work systemically to address the conditions that force teachers to crowdfund for basic supplies.

The Black Teacher Collaborative’s team brings deep expertise in teacher preparation, retention, and advocacy. They understand the unique challenges HBCU graduates face in the teaching profession and the unique assets they bring. Supporting such organizations isn’t charity; it’s strategic investment in educational equity and teacher empowerment.

While individual and organizational philanthropy is crucial, the root problem is systemic underfunding of public schools, particularly those serving low-income students and African American students. HBCU alumni, with their networks and influence, can advocate for equitable school funding formulas, increased teacher salaries, and policies that support rather than burden classroom teachers. Alumni associations and Greek organizations can engage in collective advocacy, using their political capital to push for the structural changes that would make teacher crowdfunding unnecessary.

Creating sustained support for HBCU alumni teachers requires more than one-off donations or awareness campaigns. It requires building a culture where supporting educators is seen as central to the HBCU mission, not peripheral to it. Alumni associations can integrate teacher support into their annual giving programs. Greek organizations can make teacher appreciation a national initiative. HBCU families can include teachers in their philanthropic planning.

This culture shift starts with storytelling. When alumni share why they support teachers, they inspire others. When teachers share how support has transformed their classrooms, they make the impact tangible. When students whose lives have been changed speak up, they close the loop. These stories, shared widely and often, create momentum. It also requires accountability. Alumni associations and organizations should set goals: How many teacher projects will we fund this year? How many teachers will we mentor? How much will we donate to organizations like the Black Teacher Collaborative? Tracking progress and reporting results keeps teacher support visible and valued.

Supporting HBCU alumni teachers is about more than helping individuals; it’s about sustaining a tradition and building a movement. HBCUs have always been about uplift, not just of individuals but of entire communities. When we support teachers, we honor that legacy. We ensure that the next generation has access to educators who see their brilliance, understand their context, and refuse to let resource scarcity limit their potential.

The 1,690 HBCU alumni on DonorsChoose represent thousands more working in schools across the country. They are the inheritors of a tradition that goes back to the founding of HBCUs themselves. They deserve our support, our celebration, and our partnership. The question is not whether we can afford to support them but whether we can afford not to.

The call to action is clear: HBCU alumni, log onto DonorsChoose and fund a project. HBCU families, talk to your children about the importance of supporting educators. HBCU organizations, make teacher support a strategic priority. Greek letter organizations, mobilize your networks for collective impact. And everyone, support HBCU-founded organizations like the Black Teacher Collaborative that are working for systemic change.

Our alumni teachers are out there every day, doing the work HBCUs prepared them to do. It’s time we showed up for them the way they show up for their students. It’s time we invested in those who are investing in our future. It’s time we gave back to those who give so much.

Disclaimer: This article was assisted by ClaudeAI.

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$50,000 From TI to Morris Brown: The Math of Good Intentions and the Silence of Black Entertainment Wealth

Posted on February 1, 2026 by | Leave a comment

“Generosity without scale is sympathy dressed as strategy.”

Morris Brown College, one of the oldest and most historically significant HBCUs in the country, recently made headlines when it announced $810,000 in combined donations — a $700,000 federal grant secured by Georgia Rep. Nikema Williams for emergency security infrastructure, a $60,000 contribution from the Sixth District of the AME Church, and a $50,000 personal donation from Grammy-winning Atlanta rapper TI. The timing was not incidental. Morris Brown had just been targeted with a violent racist threat sent via email to its students, the latest in a string of bomb threats and hate-driven communications that have terrorized HBCUs across the country over the past several years. In that context, every dollar matters. And TI’s willingness to write a check when the institution was under duress says something real about his character.

But character and capacity are two different things. And when we separate the two, the conversation about Black entertainment wealth and HBCU philanthropy becomes one that African America has been too reluctant to have.

A $50,000 donation to an HBCU that needs millions — preferably $10 million and above — to endow itself against continued financial stress is, by any honest institutional accounting, a gesture. It is not nothing. It is not ungrateful to say so. But let us look at what $50,000 actually produces when placed into an endowment. At a standard 5% endowment withdrawal rate, the industry benchmark used by universities from Harvard to Howard, a $50,000 contribution generates $2,500 per year or just over $200 per month in spendable income. That is assuming the donation is placed entirely into the endowment, that it is not drawn down immediately to cover operating costs, and that it compounds without interruption. $2,500 annually. That is the long-term institutional return on a $50,000 gift. It does not hire a single staff member. It does not fund a scholarship for more than a handful of semesters. It does not move the needle on the kind of structural financial distress that has kept institutions like Morris Brown on life support for decades.

For context, Morris Brown College lost its accreditation in 2002 publicly attributed to financial mismanagement, though it is worth saying plainly that what outside critics label mismanagement at African American institutions is frequently the predictable consequence of chronic resource deprivation, not a failure of aptitude. When an institution has operated for decades without the capital infrastructure that wealthier universities take for granted, the systems that sustain accreditation are not luxuries it can afford to build. Morris Brown did not regain its accreditation until 2022, twenty years of institutional limbo during which enrollment cratered to roughly 20 students. It has spent the years since clawing its way back, rebuilding systems, restoring credibility, and fighting to reopen its doors to students who had no other option. This is not a school that needs a symbolic gesture. It is a school that needs a war chest. The difference between $50,000 and $10 million is not simply a matter of degree. It is a difference in kind. One is a contribution. The other is a lifeline.

Here is where the conversation becomes difficult and where most people stop having it. The moment someone questions the size of a donation from a public figure, the response is predictable. “Well, he did not have to give anything.” “Who else is stepping up?” “At least he did something.” All of those statements are technically true. And all of them function as a wall that prevents any honest interrogation of whether the donation was calibrated to the actual need of the institution. This is the trap of philanthropic shame. It weaponizes gratitude against accountability. It makes any critique of giving patterns feel ungrateful, even when the critique is not about the donor’s character but about the structural mismatch between the scale of Black entertainment wealth and the scale of Black institutional need.

The reason to be cautious in criticizing TI specifically is not complicated either. There is always the possibility that a $50,000 donation is the first installment that the donor intends to return, to escalate, to commit over time. Philanthropic shame, if deployed too early and too harshly, can kill that possibility before it develops. No one wants to be the reason a donor who was testing the waters never comes back. So we extend the benefit of the doubt. We say thank you. And we move on to the next crisis. But extending the benefit of the doubt indefinitely is not generosity. It is passivity. And passivity is the reason HBCUs remain structurally underfunded while the entertainers and athletes who come from those communities spend their wealth in ways that have nothing to do with institutional survival.

This is the part of the conversation that makes people uncomfortable, so it needs to be said plainly. Rap music, the dominant cultural product of Black entertainment, has spent decades glorifying consumption. The cars, the clubs, the jewelry, the real estate purchased not as investment but as exhibition. The lyrics are not subtle. The messaging is not buried. It is the core aesthetic of an industry that has produced generational wealth for a small number of people while simultaneously shaping the financial identity of an entire generation of young Black men. TI himself has built a career in part on that aesthetic. His catalog includes some of the most commercially successful hip-hop of the last two decades. His business ventures span multiple industries. His net worth, by most estimates, puts him in a category where a $50,000 donation to an HBCU or African American nonprofit is not a sacrifice it is a rounding error. This is not an attack on TI. It is an observation about proportion. When someone whose public brand is built on wealth flexes in the direction of philanthropy, the question is not whether the donation is welcome. It is whether the donation reflects an understanding of what HBCUs actually need to survive. And $50,000, against the backdrop of the consumption narrative that built his brand, reads less like a philanthropic commitment and more like a line item, something that allows the story to be told without fundamentally changing the financial equation.

The case of Sean “Diddy” Combs and his reported $1 million pledge to Howard University is instructive here, though for different reasons. That pledge which Howard likely never received, and which, given subsequent events surrounding Combs, would have likely needed to be returned regardless illustrates a structural problem in how Black entertainers engage with HBCU philanthropy: the difference between a pledge and a donation. A pledge is a promise. It requires follow-through, and in many cases it does not arrive. Howard University, one of the most visible and well-connected HBCUs in the country, has publicly acknowledged the gap between pledges made by high-profile donors and funds actually received. When someone of Diddy’s financial standing pledges $1 million instead of simply writing the check, it raises the question of whether the gesture was ever truly about the institution or about the optics of appearing philanthropic. The distinction matters enormously for HBCUs. A pledge that never materializes does not pay tuition. It does not fund scholarships. It does not stabilize an endowment. It creates a false sense of security, a headline that suggests the institution has been supported when, in financial reality, nothing has changed.

TI is not alone in his absence from serious HBCU philanthropy, and that is the larger indictment. The Black entertainment and sports ecosystem has produced an unprecedented concentration of individual wealth in African American history. Athletes earning eight and nine figures annually. Musicians whose streaming catalogs generate passive income indefinitely. Actors, producers, brand ambassadors, a class of Black wealth that did not exist at this scale a generation ago. And the wealth is not abstract or distant. It is landing right in Atlanta — the same city where Morris Brown sits. Nickeil Alexander-Walker signed a four-year, $62 million contract with the Atlanta Hawks in July 2025. CJ McCollum, earning roughly $30.67 million in the final year of a $64 million contract, was traded to that same Hawks roster in January 2026. Kyle Pitts, the former fourth overall NFL draft pick, is entering free agency after completing a four-year, $32.9 million rookie contract with the Atlanta Falcons, playing his fifth-year option at $10.878 million. These are three athletes whose combined contractual wealth over recent years exceeds $190 million — all in Atlanta, all in the same city as a historically significant HBCU that just received $50,000 in a moment of crisis. The proximity is not coincidental. It is the point. The wealth is here. The need is here. The question is whether the two will ever meet on terms that actually matter to institutional survival. And yet, when we look at the philanthropic landscape of HBCUs, the contributions from this class of earners remain episodic, reactive, and structurally insufficient. The giving tends to arrive in moments of crisis, a threat, a tragedy, a headline that makes inaction look bad. It rarely arrives as a proactive, strategic commitment to institutional endowment building. It rarely arrives at the scale that would actually change the trajectory of a school’s financial health. This is not a coincidence. It is a pattern. And the pattern reveals something important about how Black entertainment and athletic wealth understands or fails to understand its relationship to Black institutional survival.

Morris Brown’s situation is a case study in reactive giving. The school was under threat. TI donated. The AME Church donated. A federal grant arrived. The headlines wrote themselves: “$810,000 in donations to Morris Brown.” On the surface, it looks like the system worked. The institution was in danger, and resources materialized. But this is crisis philanthropy, giving triggered by emergency, not guided by long-term institutional strategy. Crisis philanthropy keeps institutions alive in the short term while doing almost nothing to build the endowment depth, operational resilience, and financial sovereignty that would prevent the next crisis from being existential. For HBCUs to move beyond survival mode, the philanthropic relationship with Black entertainment wealth must shift from reactive to proactive. That means donors of consequence such as athletes, musicians, actors, entrepreneurs must begin thinking about HBCU giving not as a charitable impulse but as an institutional investment. It means committing at levels that actually move endowment needles. It means giving consistently, not just when a camera is on. It means understanding that $50,000 is appreciated, but $5 million is transformational, and $50 million is generational.

Morris Brown College needs what every structurally underfunded HBCU needs: a minimum $10 million endowment contribution to begin building genuine financial insulation. At a 5% withdrawal rate, a $10 million endowment produces $500,000 annually enough to fund several scholarships, support basic operational stability, and begin the slow process of institutional self-sufficiency. A $50 million endowment produces $2.5 million annually. That is the threshold at which an HBCU stops being vulnerable to every external shock and starts functioning as a durable institution. TI’s $50,000 is welcome. It is not unwanted, and it is not nothing. But it is not the answer to Morris Brown’s structural problem. Neither is any single donation from any single entertainer. The answer requires a collective commitment, a decision by the Black entertainers and athletes who have benefited most from the cultural and educational ecosystems that HBCUs helped build, to invest back into those ecosystems at a scale that matches the crisis.

The question is no longer whether anyone will criticize a $50,000 gift. The question is whether the class of people who can afford to give $5 million will ever decide that HBCUs are worth that investment not in a moment of crisis, but as a permanent fixture of their financial and philanthropic identity. Morris Brown College survived the threat. It received donations. But survival is not the same as strength. And until Black entertainment wealth decides to fund strength not just survival, HBCUs like Morris Brown will continue to depend on the next headline to remind donors that they still exist.

Disclaimer: This article was assisted by ClaudeAI.

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Pan-African Donor-Advised Funds: A Blueprint For African American Financial Institutions

Posted on January 30, 2026 by | Leave a comment

“To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.” — W.E.B. Du Bois

Philanthropy, at its best, is not only about generosity but also about power. For African America and the broader African Diaspora, philanthropy has too often been reduced to the goodwill of outsider corporations, foundations, and billionaires whose dollars arrive with priorities and strings attached. If African American financial institutions are to play a central role in reshaping the destiny of our people, they must learn to wield the tools of modern philanthropy at scale. Chief among these tools is the donor-advised fund.

A donor-advised fund, or DAF, is a charitable giving vehicle hosted by a sponsoring public charity. Donors contribute assets such as cash, securities, or real estate, receive an immediate tax deduction, and then recommend grants to nonprofit organizations over time. These funds are often described as “charitable investment accounts,” because once assets are placed inside them they can be invested for tax-free growth, providing donors the flexibility to make grants years or even decades later. Unlike private foundations, DAFs do not carry heavy administrative costs, reporting requirements, or annual payout mandates. That combination of flexibility, efficiency, and tax benefit has made them the fastest-growing vehicle in philanthropy, with more than $229 billion in assets managed in the United States by 2022.

The technical mechanics are straightforward, but the implications for African American institutional power are profound. When majority institutions host DAFs, they not only manage the assets and collect the fees but also strengthen their institutional position in the broader philanthropic ecosystem. If African American banks, credit unions, and HBCUs were to host their own DAF platforms, they would retain both the capital and the influence. They would also ensure that those assets circulate internally, building the capacity of Black institutions rather than reinforcing external ones.

The Pan-African case for donor-advised funds grows out of both history and strategy. The African Diaspora is scattered across North America, the Caribbean, South America, Europe, and Africa. Despite cultural variations, there is a shared experience of enslavement, colonization, and systemic exclusion that has left us fragmented and underdeveloped institutionally. A Pan-African DAF would allow African America’s wealth to pool with Diasporic wealth, creating a philanthropic capital base that could fund initiatives from Harlem to Havana, from Lagos to London. Imagine a Spelman alumna in Atlanta, a banker in Kingston, and a tech entrepreneur in Nairobi all contributing to the same Pan-African DAF. The fund’s assets grow through coordinated investment, and the grants sustain HBCUs, African universities, Diaspora think tanks, hospitals, and cooperative businesses. Philanthropy would move beyond sporadic generosity into a coordinated, long-term Diasporic strategy.

African American financial institutions are uniquely positioned to lead in building these vehicles. Black-owned banks could create DAF platforms, allowing depositors and wealthier clients to establish accounts, with the bank managing the assets and directing grants into curated pools of African American and Diaspora institutions. HBCUs could build DAFs under their endowment arms, offering alumni the chance to contribute not just to individual schools but to collective vehicles that support Black higher education broadly. Credit unions, already rooted in cooperative traditions, could create member-based DAFs that channel contributions into scholarships, healthcare clinics, or Diaspora research projects. A Pan-African exchange could even emerge, allowing African American donors to support African institutions and African donors to support African American initiatives, breaking down silos and creating reciprocity.

The impact on philanthropy would be transformative. Pooling resources through Pan-African DAFs would reduce fragmentation and administrative waste. A single DAF with $1 billion in assets could deploy $50 million in annual grants while continuing to grow its capital base. Instead of thousands of scattered donations, these funds would strategically target long-term capacity-building institutions like universities, hospitals, and think tanks. They would also allow families to pass advisory privileges to children and grandchildren, embedding intergenerational philanthropy into family legacies. By linking U.S. tax benefits with Diaspora impact, Pan-African DAFs would connect global Black institutions across borders in ways never before achieved.

More than philanthropy, DAFs are about institutional power. Hosting our own funds would allow African America to retain capital that otherwise circulates through majority institutions. The act of managing billions in philanthropic assets would increase the legitimacy, visibility, and bargaining power of African American banks and credit unions in the national financial system. Control over DAFs also allows agenda-setting: funding HBCU graduate schools, African healthcare systems, Diaspora media, or land ownership initiatives. With sufficient scale, Pan-African DAFs would fund the think tanks, advocacy networks, and policy shops that shape legislation and strategy across the Diaspora. They would also strengthen interdependence between Black banks, universities, and cooperatives, weaving a tighter institutional ecosystem. And globally, they would reframe African American philanthropy as not merely domestic but as a force shaping development across Africa, the Caribbean, and beyond.

Mainstream philanthropic firms offer lessons. Fidelity Charitable, Schwab Charitable, and Vanguard Charitable collectively manage tens of billions in DAF assets, attracting donors with ease of use, professional management, and trusted brands. But they also embody the critique that DAFs can warehouse wealth indefinitely, giving donors immediate tax deductions without ensuring timely disbursement to communities. A Pan-African DAF must avoid this trap by committing to clear disbursement expectations, perhaps requiring annual grantmaking of 7 to 10 percent of assets. It must also invest in building trust and branding. Fidelity and Schwab are household names; African American financial institutions must cultivate similar reputations for professionalism, security, and vision if they are to attract donors at scale.

The roadmap to implementation is straightforward. Institutions must establish DAFs under existing nonprofit or financial arms with full compliance to IRS rules. They must develop Pan-African investment strategies that allocate assets into African American-owned funds, African sovereign bonds, and Diasporic infrastructure projects. They need technology platforms that allow donors to open accounts, contribute assets, recommend grants, and track impact with ease. Partnerships with vetted institutions across the Diaspora are essential, ensuring that grants reach trusted universities, hospitals, and cooperatives. Above all, a compelling public narrative must frame participation in Pan-African DAFs as not just philanthropy but as an act of liberation and institution building. Families should be encouraged to use DAFs to teach the next generation about philanthropy and responsibility, embedding giving as a permanent part of Diasporic culture.

The vision for the future is clear. By 2045, African American banks could be managing $100 billion in Pan-African DAFs, with $7–10 billion flowing annually into HBCUs, African universities, hospitals, and think tanks. Fee revenues from managing these assets would sustain our financial institutions, while the grants would expand the capacity of Diasporic institutions. The Pan-African DAF could become one of the most powerful philanthropic vehicles in the world, rivaling Gates, Ford, and Rockefeller. But unlike those entities, it would not be rooted in charity; it would be rooted in sovereignty. It would represent a Diaspora using philanthropy to build freedom, not dependency.

Donor-advised funds are not new, but their potential for African American and Pan-African institutions has yet to be realized. For too long, our wealth has flowed outward, strengthening others’ institutions while leaving ours fragile. By developing Pan-African DAFs, African American banks, credit unions, and HBCUs can capture that wealth, grow it, and deploy it across the Diaspora to increase our power. This is not simply about philanthropy; it is about sovereignty, agenda-setting, and survival. The next century will not be decided by who receives charity but by who controls the institutions that give it.

Disclaimer: This article was assisted by ChatGPT

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The Decline Of African American Administrators, Faculty, and Staff Endangers The Cultural IQ of HBCUs

Posted on January 27, 2026 by | Leave a comment

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education. — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights leader.

In the heart of Black America, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have long stood as bastions of culture, scholarship, and legacy. For over a century, they have been the educators of Black doctors, lawyers, artists, and entrepreneurs producing alumni who carry the spirit of service, resilience, and community into the wider world. But as the demographics of their faculty, administrators, and staff begin to shift away from their original mission, a cultural crisis looms. HBCUs are in danger of just becoming a diet version of PWIs. They are in danger of becoming Others’ institutions and no longer higher education institutions that represent the interests of African America and the larger Diaspora.

Today, fewer African American professors walk HBCU halls. Fewer Black deans shape curriculum rooted in our lived experience. And fewer culturally attuned staff members guide students with the kind of ancestral understanding that once made HBCUs more than just institutions they were safe havens.

We are witnessing a troubling erosion of what might best be described as the Cultural IQ of HBCUs. And at the center of this storm is a vanishing pipeline of HBCU alumni becoming the very educators and institutional leaders these colleges desperately need.

The data tell a sobering story. While overall enrollment at many HBCUs is stable or growing, the number of African American faculty and administrators is not keeping pace. According to a 2023 report by the National Center for Education Statistics, less than 55% of full-time faculty at HBCUs are African American, a decline from decades prior. The leadership picture is even more stark: several prominent HBCUs have seen key leadership roles—presidents, provosts, department chairs—filled by individuals with little to no HBCU or African American cultural background.

This is not a conversation about exclusion. It’s a conversation about preservation. Cultural IQ, the lived experience, emotional intelligence, and intergenerational memory that African American faculty bring to campus is vital to the mission of HBCUs.

“Our institutions are continuing their academic strength but becoming culturally unrecognizable,” says William A. Foster, IV, an economist, financier, and HBCU alumnus. “What happens when the very people who carry the oral and spiritual history of our schools are no longer the ones teaching and leading?”

From Alumni to Architects: Building a Faculty Pipeline

One of the most promising ways to reverse this trend is to create a clear, intentional pipeline for HBCU alumni to return as faculty, staff, and administrators. Many graduates of HBCUs would jump at the opportunity to come back but financial, professional, and institutional roadblocks often get in the way.

This is where the HBCU Faculty Development Network (HBCU-FDN) comes in. Founded to support faculty at HBCUs through professional development, mentoring, and pedagogical innovation, the Network is uniquely positioned to become the heartbeat of a renewed talent pipeline. But it needs more support and visibility.

Imagine a structured, inter-HBCU program, one backed by governmental and philanthropic dollars that identifies promising undergraduates, supports them through HBCU graduate programs, places them in teaching assistantships, connects them to mentors through HBCU-FDN, and then guarantees interviews at HBCU campuses upon graduation. It’s time to rethink what faculty development means. We’re not just developing skills we’re preserving cultural continuity. HBCU graduate schools are uniquely situated to be the breeding ground for the next generation of African American faculty. From Howard’s School of Divinity to Florida A&M’s College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, graduate students often come with a mix of cultural knowledge and scholarly ambition. But they need a system that encourages them to stay within the ecosystem.

Too often, HBCU graduate students are trained at their alma maters and then “exported” to majority-white institutions, both due to higher pay and limited on-campus faculty opportunities. A shift in strategy backed by deliberate investment could change this. Graduate assistantships that offer teaching experience, tuition remission, and research mentorships tied to HBCU-FDN could create a self-sustaining culture of scholarship. And importantly, HBCUs need to offer competitive packages to attract their own graduates back. There’s a deep emotional pull when you think about teaching where you were taught. But they have student loans to consider and cannot afford to come back just for nostalgia. This is where material incentives must meet mission.

Faculty retention is not just about recruitment it’s about creating lives worth living. For many HBCU alumni, particularly those returning to rural or economically challenged towns, the prospect of moving back to teach is made harder by financial instability. Housing support could be a game-changer.

Down payment assistance, low-interest home loans, and first-time buyer programs tied to faculty appointments would not only attract alumni but anchor them in the communities they serve. This model, successfully piloted in other sectors such as medicine and public education, could be expanded through HUD-HBCU partnerships, regional banks, or even campus-based community development funds.

“If you can give a medical school grad incentives to work in underserved areas, why not do the same for faculty at Black colleges?” argues Mr. Foster, who researches institutional economics and ecosystems. “The social return on investment is enormous.” Indeed, an HBCU that retains a culturally informed faculty member for 20 years gains more than a teacher, it gains a historian, a mentor, a surrogate parent, and a living curriculum.

Rebuilding the HBCU pipeline cannot be confined to American borders. HBCUs have a powerful opportunity to collaborate with African and Caribbean colleges and universities to build transnational faculty exchange programs, joint doctoral degrees, and even faculty credentialing pathways.

Imagine a Nigerian Ph.D. student at the University of Lagos who teaches for a semester at Tuskegee University as part of a diaspora exchange program. Or a Caribbean education scholar completing a visiting professorship at Southern University while collaborating on curriculum development. These aren’t flights of fancy they are strategic partnerships waiting to be forged.

The Pan-African intellectual tradition is our superpower. By partnering with African and Caribbean institutions, we infuse our campuses with a broader Black experience and build networks that empower all of us. Such partnerships could be coordinated through consortia like the Association of Caribbean Higher Education Administrators or the African Research Universities Alliance.

Cultural IQ is not just about familiarity with Black history. It’s about understanding how trauma, family structures, faith, language, resistance, and joy show up in the classroom. It’s about knowing why a student may resist authority or thrive under communal support. It’s about understanding the subtext behind silence or the significance of the Black church in a student’s worldview.

When HBCUs lose this kind of faculty wisdom, they risk becoming hollowed-out shells. Institutions may remain, but their souls quietly disappear. African American faculty are more likely to mentor Black students, use culturally relevant pedagogy, and engage in community-based scholarship. When that faculty is missing, students often feel less seen, less supported, and less likely to persist. In other words: retention of culturally attuned faculty improves student retention. To build this pipeline, bold philanthropy and supportive policy must go hand in hand.

Foundations like Mellon, Lumina, and the United Negro College Fund have already shown interest in faculty development. What’s needed now is alignment tying funding to long-term pipeline outcomes, incentivizing inter-HBCU faculty mobility, and supporting research programs that keep Black scholars engaged.

On the policy side, state legislatures and the federal government can expand Title III funding specifically for faculty recruitment and retention. The Department of Education could support teaching fellowships for HBCU alumni. And Congress could pilot a Faculty Forgiveness Program, where a portion of student loans is forgiven for each year of service at an HBCU. It is important to design anything in a politically strategic way that can survive political variances. This is about reparative investment. HBCUs gave so much with so little. The least we can do is fund the future of their faculties.

This isn’t just an institutional problem it’s a community imperative. If you’re an HBCU alum, consider returning to teach. If you’re a philanthropist, invest in the cultural stewards of our classrooms. If you’re a student, imagine yourself not just graduating but returning to guide the next class.

Reclaiming the Cultural IQ of HBCUs is not a luxury—it’s a necessity. Because no one can teach us like us.

Sidebar: What Is Cultural IQ?

Cultural IQ refers to the depth of understanding, sensitivity, and emotional intelligence that individuals bring to cultural experiences. At HBCUs, it’s the instinct to uplift, contextualize, and nurture Black students with care, rigor, and rooted knowledge. Faculty with high Cultural IQ don’t just teach Black students—they teach to them, for them, and with them.

Sidebar: The HBCU Faculty Development Network

HBCU-FDN is a nonprofit consortium of HBCUs dedicated to enhancing teaching effectiveness and professional development. The Network holds annual conferences, offers mentorship programs, and supports curriculum innovation across more than 100 institutions.

Learn more: https://hbcufdn.org

Callout Box: 5 Ways to Build the Faculty Pipeline Now

  1. Graduate Fellowships for HBCU alumni to pursue advanced degrees at HBCUs.
  2. Teaching Assistantships tied to faculty mentorship and career placement.
  3. Homeownership Incentives for faculty moving into HBCU communities.
  4. Faculty Exchange Programs with African and Caribbean institutions.
  5. Student Loan Forgiveness for multi-year faculty service at HBCUs.
  6. Sabbatical Programs for faculty to spend a year doing research.

Disclaimer: This article was assisted by ChatGPT

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