Howard University, one of the nation’s apical Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), burst into the nationalist news successful July erstwhile it abruptly canceled enrollment for 500 freshmen, a 5th of the incoming class. The students had ostensibly missed the deadline for establishing they could screen the Washington, D.C. school’s $66,182 full yearly costs of attendance.
Isabella Williams, who graduated from Russell County High School successful Alabama past May with a 4.3 people constituent mean and a raft of honors and scholarships, received 1 of those jarring notices. Howard was much than her dream school; it was a chance to reclaim her family’s legacy, she told Forbes. Her ain mother had been forced to driblet retired of Howard for financial reasons, but an uncle later served arsenic the university’s vice-provost. "I wasn't capable to acquisition overmuch of my family's civilization arsenic a child," she said, "so being capable to beryllium person to them and benignant of get the aforesaid acquisition that they've had was really important to me.” She yet sewage her enrollment reinstated (as did much than 200 different students) aft her danasiwa money was confirmed. Williams insists that she and immoderate of the others who were disenrolled had documented their costs plans connected clip and were simply waiting for money from loans, scholarships and veterans benefits to beryllium disbursed.
On CNN, Wayne Frederick, Howard’s interim (and former) president, explained the reasoning down the disenrollment letters. While the schoolhouse is successful “high demand,” he said, its graduation complaint (most precocious 69%) has been declining because it has allowed excessively galore students to commencement without a viable financial scheme successful spot to complete their degrees.
The Howard section dramatically illustrates 2 seemingly contradictory facts astir the 10 backstage and 10 nationalist schools honored connected Forbes’ first-ever ranking of America’s Top HBCUs. Their fame is growing, moreover arsenic their longstanding financial problems (and those of their students) are worsening.
On July 1, cuts to national student loans programs and caller limits connected eligibility for national Pell Grants for lower-income students started to footwear in. All were passed successful 2025 arsenic portion of Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The reductions airs challenges for each schools, but peculiarly for HBCUs, which typically person a higher percent of low-income students than their predominantly achromatic counterparts and person acold smaller endowments disposable to subsidize those students themselves. (According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 56% of HBCU students received Pell Grants successful the 2023-2024 schoolhouse year, compared to 32% of each undergraduates.)
Meanwhile, the nation’s 100 HBCUs, which person historically played an outsized domiciled successful educating the nation’s Black doctors, lawyers, judges, engineers and teachers, person knowledgeable a resurgence successful popularity. After shrinking from 1976 to 2014, the stock of Black assemblage students choosing to be an HBCU has stabilized and moreover grown, pinch the 2020 execution of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, the Supreme Court’s 2023 determination outlawing affirmative action, and the Trump Administration’s existent battle connected assemblage diverseness programs starring much Black students to activity retired HBCUs for a consciousness of belonging and connection. (The schools, which were mostly created during the Reconstruction play aft the Civil War, now person a student assemblage that is astir 75% Black.)
Despite its problems, Howard, the alma mater of erstwhile Vice President Kamala Harris, ranks #1 among backstage schools connected our list.
THE TOP HBCUs: PRIVATE
1. Howard University
Founded successful 1867, Howard has agelong produced apical players successful business, science, the arts, publicity and authorities and offers a afloat suite of postgraduate programs, including medical, dental and rule schools. The rule school’s astir celebrated grad is Thurgood Marshall, while undergrad alumni see Kamala Harris, Toni Morrison and Chadwick Boseman.
Location: Washington, D.C.
Undergraduate Enrollment: 11,084
Graduate Enrollment: 3,348
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance: $66,182
6-year graduation rate: 69%
Retention rate: 90%
Early-career Median pay: $70,600
Mid-career Median pay: $123,200
2. Spelman College
Founded successful 1881 arsenic the nation's first HBCU for women, the still female-only and undergraduate-only assemblage has beardown programs successful the societal sciences, biology, biochemistry, psychology, education, play and English connection and literature. Grads see Alice Walker, Stacey Abrams and existent Federal Reserve Board personnel Lisa Cook.
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Enrollment: 2,597
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance: $61,683
6-year graduation rate: 76%
Retention rate: 91%
Early-career Median pay: $68,000
Mid-career Median pay: $102,700
3. Morehouse College
Founded successful 1867 arsenic the nation's only HBCU exclusively for men, Morehouse is known for business administration, governmental science, machine subject and its biology/pre-med studies. (It launched the now abstracted Morehouse School of Medicine successful 1975.) Grads see Martin Luther King Jr., Sen. Raphael Warnock, head Spike Lee and character Samuel L. Jackson.
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Enrollment: 2,206
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance: $59,430
6-year graduation rate: 53%
Retention rate: 84%
Early-career Median pay: $71,800
Mid-career Median pay: $126,700
4. Xavier University of Louisiana
Founded successful 1925, the nation's only historically Catholic HBCU has built an outsized estimation for sending Black students to aesculapian school. Its best-known programs are successful biology/pre-med, chemistry, pharmacy, expert adjunct studies, aesculapian laboratory science, neuroscience, wellness informatics and reside pathology. Famous grads see Regina Benjamin, a erstwhile U.S. Surgeon General who won a MacArthur “genius award.”
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana
Undergraduate Enrollment: 2,575
Graduate Enrollment: 207
College of Pharmacy Enrollment: 315
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance: $40,454
6-year graduation rate: 48%
Retention rate: 70%
Early-career Median pay: $56,700
Mid-career Median pay: $104,100
5. Hampton University
Founded successful 1868, Hampton is known for psychology, biology and STEM, business administration, and publicity and communication. Its astir celebrated postgraduate is Booker T. Washington, who walked 500 miles from West Virginia to enroll, graduated successful 1875, and founded Tuskegee Institute successful 1881. This year, alum Ruth E. Carter, a two-time victor of the Oscar for costume design, received her 5th nomination, for Sinners.
Location: Hampton, Virginia
Undergraduate Enrollment: 3,845
Graduate Enrollment: 841
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance: $47,500
6-year graduation rate: 56%
Retention rate: 81%
Early-career Median pay: $66,400
Mid-career Median pay: $112,900
6. Tuskegee University
Founded successful 1881 pinch Booker T. Washington arsenic its first principal, Tuskegee is location to the only veterinary medicine programme astatine an HBCU. It’s besides the only HBCU to connection ROTC programs for each branches of the military, including the caller Space Force. Along pinch agriculture, biotechnology, nursing, engineering, machine subject and cybersecurity, it is known for training commercialized pilots. Famous grads see World War II’s Tuskegee Airmen, Ralph Ellison and Lionel Richie.
Location: Tuskegee, Alabama
Undergraduate Enrollment: 3,366
Graduate Enrollment: 227
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance: $39,160
6-year graduation rate: 57%
Retention rate: 76%
Early-career Median pay: $70,700
Mid-career Median pay: $103,800
7. Fisk University
Founded successful 1866, Fisk is known coming for the Fisk-Vanderbilt Master's-to-PhD Bridge Program—a pipeline that makes Fisk a apical launching pad for Black PhDs successful physics, chemistry and biology. It besides has beardown undergraduate programs successful science, information subject and music, and is location to the renowned Fisk Jubilee Singers. Alumni see civilian authorities icon John Lewis and clever clever W.E.B. Du Bois.
Location: Nashville, Tennessee
Undergraduate Enrollment: 1,015
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance: $38,490
6-year graduation rate: 44%
Retention rate: 71%
Early-career Median pay: $57,100
Mid-career Median pay: $95,500
8. Talladega College
Founded successful 1867 by erstwhile slaves, Talladega's field is location to celebrated murals by Hale Woodruff depicting the 1839 Amistad enslaved vessel rebellion. The assemblage has built its estimation pinch applicable programs; it’s known for its business management and machine accusation majors, the second pinch a cybersecurity focus.
Location: Talladega, Alabama
Undergraduate Enrollment: 701
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance: $27,000
6-year graduation rate: 65%
Retention rate: 72%
Early-career Median pay: $44,300
Mid-career Median pay: $83,100
9. Clark Atlanta University
Formed successful 1988 done the consolidation of Atlanta University (1865) and Clark College (1869), Clark Atlanta is known for its business management program, arsenic good arsenic fields successful wide media, biology, chemistry and cyber-physical systems. Notable alumni see James Weldon Johnson, writer of "Lift Every Voice and Sing"; Sheryl Lee Ralph of Abbott Elementary; and Jasmine Guy of A Different World (a Cosby Show spinoff focused connected HBCU life).
Location: Atlanta, Georgia
Undergraduate Enrollment: 3,492
Graduate Enrollment: 706
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance: $32,858
6-year graduation rate: 48%
Retention rate: 70%
Early-career Median pay: $58,300
Mid-career Median pay: $98,300
10. Tougaloo College
Founded successful 1869 by the American Missionary Association, Tougaloo is known for beardown pre-health and earthy sciences programs (bolstered by its business pinch Brown University and Brown’s aesculapian school), on pinch societal sciences, business and education. Notable alumni see Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP.
Location: Tougaloo, Mississippi
Undergraduate Enrollment: 1,286
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance: $25,382
6-year graduation rate: 31%
Retention rate: 71%
Early-career Median pay: $45,700
Mid-career Median pay: $80,000
Our HBCU ranking is based, arsenic is our 2026 database of America’s Top 500 Colleges, connected a assortment of measures of student outcomes and return connected investment. We look, for example, astatine really apt students are to graduate, what they gain and really overmuch student indebtedness they carry, giving other in installments to schools that execute bully outcomes for students receiving Pell Grants. We besides facet successful our ain Forbes American Leaders List—a compilation of group who clasp precocious office, person won prestigious awards aliases person been honored connected definite Forbes lists. (You tin read much astir our methodology and sources here.)
Only 2 HBCUs—Howard and Spelman College successful Atlanta—made the 2026 Top 500 list. The HBCUs’ ratings are wounded by, among different factors, comparatively debased rates of graduation and retention (the percent of students who return aft their first year). Spelman, the alma mater of economist Lisa Cook (now serving connected the Federal Reserve Board, contempt President Donald Trump’s efforts to occurrence her), has a 76% graduation rate, the highest connected this list. According to Department of Education data, an mean of astir 60% of freshmen who participate a 4 twelvemonth assemblage postgraduate wrong six years. For HBCUs, connected average, under 40% of freshmen meet that mark, pinch 1 of the reasons for those little rates being the financial challenges galore students astatine these schools face.
North Carolina A&T State University, the #1 classed nationalist HBCU connected the Forbes list, has a graduation complaint of 55%. Tennessee State, the #6 classed nationalist HBCU, has a graduation complaint of conscionable 34%. Yet HBCUs tin declare immoderate singular graduates. Billionaire Oprah Winfrey, #1 connected Forbes' caller database of the 250 Greatest Living Self-Made Americans, attended Tennessee State connected a afloat danasiwa she won pinch her speaking skills.
THE TOP HBCUs: PUBLIC
1. North Carolina A&T State University
Founded successful 1891 arsenic the Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race, what is now called the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University is the largest HBCU successful the country. It gained nationalist attraction successful 1960 erstwhile 4 of its students sat successful astatine the segregated Greensboro Woolworth luncheon counter. Today, it’s known arsenic the largest shaper of Black engineers astatine some the undergraduate and postgraduate level. Notable alumni see civilian authorities leader Jesse Jackson and NASA astronaut Ronald McNair.
Location: Greensboro, North Carolina
Undergraduate Enrollment: 13,257
Graduate Enrollment: 2,018
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (In-State): $28,519
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (Out-of-State): $43,243
6-year graduation rate: 55%
Retention rate: 77%
Early-career Median pay: $68,700
Mid-career Median pay: $116,300
2. Florida A&M University
Founded successful 1887 arsenic the State Normal College for Colored Students to train teachers, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU) is the only nationalist HBCU successful Florida and 1 of the largest successful the country. It is nationally recognized for its top-tier drugstore program, which graduates 20% of the nation’s Black pharmacists, arsenic good arsenic a business programme (undergraduate and MBA) that’s been a pipeline to firm jobs. Famous alumni see tennis trailblazer Althea Gibson, Keisha Lance Bottoms and Anika Noni Rose, the Tony Award-winning character who voiced Disney's Princess Tiana successful The Princess and the Frog.
Location: Tallahassee, Florida
Undergraduate Enrollment: 9,500
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (In-State): $25,921
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (Out-of-State): $36,985
6-year graduation rate: 52%
Retention rate: 88%
Early-career Median pay: $60,900
Mid-career Median pay: $99,600
3. Prairie View A&M University
Founded successful 1876, Prairie View A&M is the oldest nationalist HBCU successful Texas and second-oldest authorities schoolhouse successful Texas. A personnel of the Texas A&M University System, it's known for programs successful agriculture, engineering, nursing, business and architecture, on pinch investigation successful renewable power and cybersecurity. Notable alumni see civilian authorities activistic Sandra Bland and character Mr. T.
Location: Prairie View, Texas
Undergraduate Enrollment: 9,022
Graduate Enrollment: 1,035
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (In-State): $31,291
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (Out-of-State): $48,865
6-year graduation rate: 43%
Retention rate: 74%
Early-career Median pay: $72,300
Mid-career Median pay: $117,900
4. Morgan State University
Founded successful 1867 arsenic the Centenary Biblical Institute, Morgan State has carved retired respective modern niches pinch programs successful artificial intelligence and cybersecurity; applied neuroscience; screenwriting and animation; journalism; and Ph.D. programs successful applied sociology and societal justice. Notable alumni see Earl G. Graves Sr., laminitis of Black Enterprise magazine; Washington journalist April Ryan; and Maryland Congressman Kweisi Mfume.
Location: Baltimore, Maryland
Undergraduate Enrollment: 11,559
Graduate Enrollment: 2,005
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (In-State): $32,001
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (Out-of-State): $43,111
6-year graduation rate: 42%
Retention rate: 72%
Early-career Median pay: $65,700
Mid-career Median pay: $95,400
5. University of the Virgin Islands
Alma mater to a sitting governor, a erstwhile premier curate and aggregate heads of Caribbean legislatures — including Virgin Islands Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. and erstwhile Sint Maarten Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs — the University of the Virgin Islands has go a pipeline for location leadership. Founded successful 1962 arsenic the territory's nationalist land-grant institution, UVI has built its sanction connected marine and biology science, alongside programs successful nursing, agriculture, business and hospitality, and an accelerated way into aesculapian schoolhouse done Boston University.
Location: St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands
Undergraduate Enrollment: 1,683
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (Island Resident): $5,300
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (Caribbean Resident): $9,276
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (Non-Resident): $15,900
6-year graduation rate: 28%
Retention rate: 68%
Early-career Median pay: $56,900
Mid-career Median pay: $99,300
6. Tennessee State University
Founded successful 1912 arsenic Nashville’s only nationalist assemblage and a land-grant institution, Tennessee State is known for programs successful agriculture, acquisition and wellness sciences, pinch 1 of the largest wellness sciences programs among HBCUs. Famous alumni see Olympic sprinter Wilma Rudolph and billionaire Oprah Winfrey, #1 connected Forbes' caller database of the 250 Greatest Living Self-Made Americans—those who person travel the farthest, based connected really small they started with. She attended TSU connected a afloat scholarship.
Location: Nashville, Tennessee
Undergraduate Enrollment: 3,758
Graduate Enrollment: 1,150
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (In-State): $9,568
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (Out-of-State): $24,264
6-year graduation rate: 34%
Retention rate: 58%
Early-career Median pay: $60,500
Mid-career Median pay: $91,100
7. Bowie State University
Founded successful 1865, Bowie State University is Maryland's oldest HBCU. Over the past decade it has built programs successful machine subject and cyber operations engineering, package engineering, information analytics and bioinformatics. It emphasizes partnerships pinch national agencies. Notable alumni see retired U.S. Air Force Major General Patrick S. Ryder, a erstwhile Pentagon property secretary. He earned a master’s successful nationalist management astatine Bowie.
Location: Bowie, Maryland
Undergraduate Enrollment: 4,810
Graduate Enrollment: 1,160
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (In-State): $26,929
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (Out-of-State): $37,648
6-year graduation rate: 38%
Retention rate: 71%
Early-career Median pay: $61,200
Mid-career Median pay: $100,700
8. Winston-Salem State University
Founded successful 1892, WSSU has built retired a wellness sciences halfway anchored by Doctor of Physical Therapy and Master of Healthcare Administration degrees, alongside newer offerings successful nationalist health, business, and applied AI. Notable alumni see sports commentator Stephen A. Smith (he attended connected a hoops scholarship) and Mel Watt, a Congressman for 11 position and later Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
Location: Winston-Salem, North Carolina
Undergraduate Enrollment: 4,293
Graduate Enrollment: 679
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (In-State): $9,062
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (Out-of-State): $19,998
6-year graduation rate: 49%
Retention rate: 76%
Early-career Median pay: $59,700
Mid-career Median pay: $88,600
9. Elizabeth City State University
Founded successful 1891, ECSU has expanded its workforce-first attack into cybersecurity, emergency management, precocious manufacturing, and education. Perched connected the banks of the Pasquotank River successful coastal North Carolina, the University has built its personality astir the entity alternatively than the oversea — training pilots, aerial postulation controllers and drone operators done 1 of the fewer aviation subject programs astatine immoderate HBCU.
Location: Elizabeth City, North Carolina
Undergraduate Enrollment: 2,360
Graduate Enrollment: 106
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (In-State): $23,452
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (Out-of-State): $27,452
6-year graduation rate: 48%
Retention rate: 74%
Early-career Median pay: $54,300
Mid-career Median pay: $86,400
10. Delaware State University
Founded successful 1891 arsenic the State College for Colored Students, Delaware State University has grown into a investigation institution pinch nationally recognized programs successful agriculture, aviation, business, nursing and education. It offers doctoral degrees successful fields including neuroscience, optics and acquisition leadership. Alumni see Ruth Ann Minner, who served arsenic the state's first female politician from 2001 to 2009 and Emmy Award-winning TV big and comedian Sheryl Underwood.
Location: Dover, Delaware
Enrollment: 6,623
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (In-State): $12,989
Undergraduate Cost of Attendance (Out-of-State): $22,992
6-year graduation rate: 39%
Retention rate: 74%
Early-career Median pay: $57,700
Mid-career Median pay: $96,700
Two student indebtedness changes that kicked successful July 1 will hit immoderate HBCUs peculiarly hard. One involves the Parent PLUS indebtedness program. Previously, parents could get straight from Uncle Sam up to the afloat costs of their children’s undergraduate programme not covered by different grants aliases loans. But caller genitor borrowers are now constricted to $20,500 per twelvemonth of borrowing pinch a life limit per undergraduate of $65,000. That could impact the much costly backstage HBCUs.
“We've had a immense enrollment surge complete the past 3 years,” exalts Darrell K. Williams, president of Virginia’s Hampton University, classed #5 among backstage HBCUs. Between 2022 and 2025, total enrollment grew 46%. But maturation and affordability are pulling successful other directions correct now, and Hampton's activity doesn’t dress otherwise.
"We're decidedly proceeding from students and parents and different family members astir the challenges that [the caller law] has resulted in," says Barbara Inman, Hampton's vice president for student occurrence and enrollment management. The schoolhouse has responded by partnering pinch backstage lenders arsenic portion of what Inman calls a "comprehensive plan"—early and repeated connection pinch families; connections to extracurricular funding; and "Taking Care of Business" sessions that locomotion parents of undergraduates done their options earlier the bills travel due.
The different large indebtedness alteration affects postgraduate students. Previously, nether the Grad PLUS program, they excessively could get their afloat costs. But grad students starting their programs aft July 1 are constricted to $20,500 a twelvemonth of borrowing ($100,000 complete each their grad studies) aliases $50,000 a twelvemonth ($200,000 successful total) if they’re successful “professional” programs, specified arsenic those for doctors, lawyers, dentists, veterinarians and pharmacists. Under last rules issued by the Department of Education, postgraduate programs educating teachers, societal workers and nurses (even caregiver practitioners) don’t count arsenic professional and truthful don’t suffice for the higher borrowing limits. (A tribunal has temporarily blocked the authorities from excluding nurses.)
Hampton besides has a assortment of masters and PhD programs, and enrollment successful those, peculiarly successful acquisition and nursing, are already showing signs of strain, Williams reports.
Alabama’s Tuskegee University, the #6 classed backstage HBCU, has been responding to the national backing overhaul pinch what President Mark Brown calls a "gainful employment mindset.” He traces the 145-year-old university's attack backmost to its laminitis and first president, Booker T. Washington. "Booker T.'s reply to that was this intersection betwixt training and education," Brown says, describing really Washington had students build the very classrooms they studied in. "You had to travel up pinch a measurement to usage the hand, the bosom and the caput successful bid to get retired of Tuskegee." Hence, he says, Tuskegee emphasizes internships and master certifications–even much important these days arsenic hiring of caller grads lags.
Tuskegee is the only HBCU pinch a veterinary schoolhouse and is known for training engineers and pilots. So Brown, a Tuskegee alum and retired Air Force Major General, is asking employers who request chemic engineers aliases veterinarians to thief region financial barriers earlier students graduate, not after. "You tin telephone it philanthropy, aliases you tin telephone it effect investment," he says, comparing it to really the Air Force pays for a cadet's acquisition successful speech for a work commitment. Tuskegee already has agreements on those lines pinch companies and national agencies, including scholarships funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture that are tied to post-graduation activity placements.
Brown is playing different financing angle, too. Before becoming Tuskegee’s president successful 2024, he worked pinch backstage equity billionaire Robert F. Smith connected the Student Freedom Initiative, a non-profit Smith seeded successful 2020 pinch a $50 cardinal gift and a ngo of reducing the indebtedness load connected HBCU graduates. This year’s incoming Tuskegee veterinary medicine students, who are taxable to the caller national indebtedness limits, will beryllium portion of a aviator task that will dress up for reduced national indebtedness limits pinch loans funded by the Smith-backed group.
The building is built to outlast immoderate 1 gift: "You don't salary it backmost to a bank. You don't salary it backmost to Robert Smith," Brown says. "You salary it backmost to a fund, and the money continues to beryllium for that school, truthful that the adjacent student tin besides get [a loan].” Brown notes the exemplary is due for fields for illustration veterinary medicine because default consequence for these students is low. He expects different HBCUs are softly building akin aviator indebtedness programs of their own, arsenic they scramble to accommodate and survive.
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Sources: Sources: Colleges, National Center for Education Statistics, Payscale, Methodology Described here.
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