II. Federal Financial Support of HBCUs
The HBCU Coalition, with President Baskerville leading the discussion on this issue, shared the HBCU community's concern with the significant decrease in federal funding over the last couple of years. The Secretary countered that the Department of Education's data reveals an actual increase in federal funding for HBCUs in all areas except "transformative" funding (defined as funding from specific agencies like the NIH, for example, to help build HBCU research capacity and grant competitiveness). There was considerable disagreement over whether HBCU have received more or less federal funding due to conflicting information distributed during the meeting by Dr. Wilson (indicating significant increased funding to HBCUs) and President Baskerville (indicating significant decreased funding to HBCUs). Ultimately, the Secretary said he believed the Obama Administration had increased funding to HBCUs, but he agreed we needed to reconcile the data to confirm the facts; he directed Dr. Wilson to work with others within the Department to address this concern.
III. Department of Education $228 Million Award
The HBCU Coalition, with President Taylor leading the discussion on this issue, shared with the Secretary the HBCU community's concern with the Department's September 18, 2012 press release/announcement. President Taylor explained that the HBCU community's development/fundraising efforts to raise special funds to deal with the loss of federal funding resulting from changes to Summer Pell, Title IIIB calculations, and the PPL was undermined and negatively impacted by the issuance of the statement by the Department. The Secretary's responded that:
✓ The Department of Education had issued this type of announcement in the past, but he understood the predicament and impact it had on HBCUs this particular year
In the future, the Department would give the HBCU Coalition Principals advance notice of their plans to make any such announcements so that we could notify our member-schools
The Department is looking forward to discussing the PPL and the Federal Financial Support issues with NAFEO, TMCF, and UNCF next week.