Joe Biden said he'd invest in Black colleges. They hope Kamala Harris can help

WASHINGTON -- Leaders of historically Black colleges and universities say they hope high-profile graduates in the Biden administration, including Vice President Kamala Harris, will push for increased federal support for their institutions.

Harris attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., and is the first HBCU graduate to occupy the vice president’s office. Another high-profile HBCU graduate, Michael Regan — the new Environmental Protection Agency administrator — attended North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro.

“I think we are cautiously optimistic that the presence of HBCU graduates in this administration and Cabinet really sends a strong signal that these institutions will be prioritized,” Roslyn Clark Artis, president of Benedict College in Columbia, S.C., said in an interview.

As a candidate for president, Joe Biden pledged more than $70 billion to the 101 schools that were established before 1964 for Black students and other minority-serving institutions. In his first 50 days in office he focused on getting Congress to pass a massive coronavirus relief package, which awarded $3 billion in emergency assistance to those schools but not enough to fulfill his campaign promise.

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