State lawmakers are pushing for a move that would invest more and help elevate South Carolina’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities, which would make it the state’s first bipartisan HBCU Caucus.
On Tuesday, October 21, education leaders from South Carolina’s eight HBCU schools and lawmakers met to discuss consistent challenges the schools face and potential solutions that could be drafted at the state level to help solve those issues.
“What we walked away with is that whether they are private or public, these are South Carolina students, they are paying tax dollars while they’re here, and we have the responsibility as lawmakers to make sure they have what they need to thrive,” State Representative for District 79 Hamilton Grant said.
Discussions regarding the caucus began this summer with Hunt Institute, a national leader in education research and policy. The two major issues that came up during discussions were infrastructure and funding.
Specifically, South Carolina’s private HBCU’s. Currently, South Carolina State University is the only public and directly funded HBCU in the state.
State Representative for South Carolina’s 86th District Bill Taylor says despite private universities receiving some funding, it’s not enough to help with their backlog of issues.
“To refurbish a building. To get an HVAC into a building could cost $5 million to replace something like that,” Taylor said. “So we have to work on that. There’s no certainty about all that, but this is a great starting point.”
According to Hunt Institute, since 1987, HBCU’s in South Carolina have been underfunded by more than $424 million. Representative Grant says HBCU’s aren’t new to punching above their weight class, but adds due to President Trump’s Executive Order promoting HBCU’s, now is good timing for the caucus.
“With the influence president trump has here in South Carolina, with the influence our legislators have with our key constituents, I think now is a good time to bring some more attention to our Historically Black Colleges and Universities,” Grant said.
The initiative is still in it’s very early stages. Grant added the next steps for the caucus include requesting more information from the school presidents to form a more concrete plan to draft for the senate, and also have lawmakers tour the campuses of all eight South Carolina HBCU’s.
