students to want to return to their close-knit campuses, where they feel nurtured, protected and unified at a time when many of them feel under attack.

Even as other colleges saw enrollment declines, especially of undergraduate students of color [9], several HBCUs, including NCA&T, are experiencing enrollment increases. There are 11,131 undergraduates enrolled at NCA&T this fall, up 3.9 percent from last year, when undergraduate enrollment was 10,709. (Graduate enrollment also increased, bringing the university's enrollment to 12,754 from 12,556 last year.)

"Our students are different because they're facing two different threats, COVID and the racial reckoning," Simmons said. "They are constantly seeing that play out, and they don't know if the government has their back, so there's a higher premium for them to protect themselves and each other to ensure they don't fall victims to illness or violence."

Brenda Claire Caldwell, president of the Student Government Association at NCA&T, agreed with that assessment.

"I think some of it is the HBCU culture," she said. "We're just like a community, and we want to keep our community safe. We know that Black and brown communities have been affected by COVID and some of us have had family sick from it. And we know we're going to go back to our vulnerable communities, and I think this motivates us."

Elizabeth City State University, another public HBCU that is part of the North Carolina system and that serves mostly rural students from low-income backgrounds, also had increased enrollment this fall. It went from 1,773 students in fall 2019 to 2,002 this fall, with 771 living on campus. The 13 percent enrollment increase was partly due to the university's low tuition -- $500 per semester for in-state students, $1,000 for out-of-state. It is one of three institutions in the UNC system with significantly reduced tuition [10].

"What we have found is that our students want to be here," said Karrie G. Dixon, Elizabeth City's chancellor. "They don't necessarily want to be online, and research has shown that they do better with in-person instruction."

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