I loved attending an HBCU, but now I'm still struggling with student loan debt 20 years later. I don't want the same for my kids.

Since I was 11, I dreamed of attending a historically Black assemblage aliases university.

That dream started astatine Morgan State University successful Baltimore, wherever I spent 2 weeks each summertime successful a programme focused connected activity and academics.

For a preteen increasing up successful Baltimore City, Morgan felt for illustration different world. I had seen supplier deals extracurricular my beforehand doorway and heard gunshots while playing hide and activity pinch friends. My mother refused to fto our vicinity specify what I thought was imaginable for my life.

At Morgan, I saw Black students carrying backpacks and briefcases, preparing for careers and building futures. They looked for illustration the life my mother kept telling maine I could have.

But it's not the life I deliberation my kids need.

I applied to 1 college

When assemblage exertion play came, I applied to 1 school: Clark Atlanta University.

My guidance counselor warned maine to springiness myself much options. I had a precocious GPA and felt definite I would get in.

Then summertime 2006 came, and my friends started receiving acceptance letters. Finally, I checked my message and saw the connection I had been waiting for. I had been accepted.

My excitement faded erstwhile I saw the cost.

Tuition, room and board, books, and fees added up quickly. It was astir $25,000 altogether. I had scholarships, but they did not travel adjacent to covering the bill. The assemblage told maine its assistance money had already been utilized and encouraged maine to use again the adjacent semester.

My mother agreed to cosign a loan. At 18, I signed paperwork for indebtedness that would travel maine for the adjacent 20 years.

I spent 4 years uncovering a way

Clark Atlanta's motto is "Find a measurement aliases make one."

I lived up to that motto. I stood successful financial aid lines that wrapped astir corners. My classes successful the wide media arts awesome were sometimes dropped because my relationship was not updated successful time.

I looked astatine the exertion disposable astatine adjacent universities and wondered why my section had truthful overmuch less. I moreover attended profession fairs astatine different schools because I wanted entree to much employers.

My family had taken connected important indebtedness pinch backstage loans. I did not expect luxury, but I expected functioning facilities, reliable administration, existent technology, and beardown profession opportunities. Unfortunately, I felt Clark Atlanta struggled successful astir of these areas erstwhile I attended from 2006 to 2010.

In my department, the School of Mass Media Arts, location was only 1 mini power position and 1 tv studio. I wanted to unpaid truthful I could get hands-on acquisition pinch the equipment, but location were acold much students willing than location were disposable spots.

That was frustrating, particularly erstwhile I visited friends astatine adjacent Georgia State University. As a ample public university, they had aggregate studios and state-of-the-art equipment. The quality successful entree and resources was difficult to ignore.

Still, Clark Atlanta gave maine thing important: I recovered belonging. I studied nether Black professors. I watched students who came from backgrounds for illustration excavation go leaders, entrepreneurs, and postgraduate students.

I gained assurance successful who I was, and that mattered, but it does not erase what the acquisition cost.

I spot assemblage otherwise arsenic a parent

At 18, I chose assemblage partially pinch my heart. I wanted Black excellence and a spot wherever I felt understood.

Now I americium a parent, and my priorities person changed. Even though not each HBCUs are created equal, I would not promote my children to take 1 simply for the experience, particularly if it intends taking connected much indebtedness for less resources.

My kids, who are now 7 and 9, do not request assemblage to present them to Black excellence. They tin acquisition that done the group astir them, books, museums, travel, history, and mundane life.

When they take a university, I want the determination to beryllium centered connected what will champion hole them for their desired careers. I want them to look astatine world programs, costs, scholarships, internships, and facilities.

If that schoolhouse is an HBCU, I will support them, but the HBCU acquisition unsocial will not beryllium capable for me.

I loved Clark Atlanta. It helped style maine into the strategical connection advisor I americium today. I tin worth what it gave maine and still mobility what I had to salary to get it.

Editor's Note: Clark Atlanta Univeristy did not respond to Business Insider's petition for comment.