Land grant, also known as Morrill Act, institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) were founded upon the principles to educate a target population with limited access to resources to expand their educational opportunities and social mobility. With the rise of new public management and neoliberalism, state financial support for higher education has changed drastically over the past two decades. Institutions are required to demonstrate performance metrics for funding. However, some of these institutions have been disproportionately under-resourced for many decades and the funding inequality has left them with a unique set of challenges to overcome. Social construction theory demonstrates the way policy can influence a target population and how the policies can shape societal perceptions about the target group. Limited funding, or in some cases omitted funding, from state legislatures to HBCUs or other Predominantly Black Institutions has led inequitable learning environments despite these institution’s commitment to serving students who may not have the financial means to otherwise pursue a postsecondary education. This study seeks to analyze the historical context of state relationships with higher education institutions, the historical context of funding inequality in higher education policy, the current climate for land grant and minority serving institutions’ role in higher education, the evolving emphasis on performance metrics for higher education institutions, and the analysis of funding practices in a more recent allocation year to investigate if funding inequality persists in the current climate.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities are institutions that contribute to the higher education of people of African descent. The archives of enslaved and freed people describe their systematic approach to education, highlighting the ways that Black communities in America engaged in teaching and learning. Despite enslavement and forced labor, legalized segregation, race-based economic disenfranchisement, and rampant anti-Black violence, people of African descent curated spaces for learning in their literary societies, fraternal organizations, religious institutions, and schools. Rooted in the Africana ways of knowing that came with them from Africa to the western hemisphere, people of African descent used education to resist the prevailing ideologies of antebellum America. HBCUs emerged as collaborations between existing, Black-led educational efforts, investment from non-Black donors and organizations, and financial support from government entities. Historical records describe the complicated relationship between Black-led educational initiatives and the American infrastructure; the timeline of Black education is saturated with systemic and state-supported racism. Thus, HBCUs served as unique institutional spaces in the landscape of 19th-Century America. This qualitative study uses interviews and open-ended survey responses to investigate how HBCU alumni interpret the pedagogical practices they experienced at predominantly Black institutions. It examines historical documents to uncover the relationship between the Africana intellectual genealogy accumulated in communities of African descent—before the formulation of HBCUs—and the subsequent founding of these institutions. Through a comprehensive exploration of the academic journeys of HBCU alumni of African descent, this study articulates and defines academic success within the context of predominantly Black institutions. Following an Unbroken Genealogy Approach, this investigation uses the Africana Studies Conceptual Categories as a framework to explore academic success at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The findings suggest that students of African descent who matriculate at HBCUs benefit from the intellectual genealogy of these institutions. The accumulated ways of knowing that impact teaching and learning at HBCUs contribute to an evolving intellectual genealogy that precedes the formation of these institutions. This research establishes the need for detailed historical examinations of every HBCU to explore their earliest foundations, chart their intellectual genealogy through previous and contemporary faculty, investigate the academic experiences of their alumni and current students, and establish how the institutional ways of knowing contribute to the collective narrative of people of African descent. / Policy, Organizational and Leadership Studies