HBCU Colleges: Full List, Admit Rates & Fall 2027

26 min read

Say a senior fills out the Common Black College Application in October, pays the one-time fee, names four schools, and closes the laptop thinking Howard is handled. It isn't. Howard, Spelman and Morehouse are not CBCA members, and nobody told her. That gap between what students assume about HBCUs and how the applications actually work is what this page closes: the real count, the full list by state, school-level admit rates, 2026-27 dollar figures, and a Fall 2027 calendar you can build a list against.

HBCU colleges, in one paragraph

An HBCU is a historically Black college or university: a U.S. institution of higher education established before 1964 whose principal mission was and is the education of Black Americans, and that is accredited or making reasonable progress toward accreditation. The definition comes from the Higher Education Act of 1965. There are 107 institutions on the federal designation list, roughly 99 to 102 of them currently open and accredited, spread across 19 states, Washington D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

What HBCU stands for and the legal definition

HBCU stands for Historically Black College or University. The label is a legal designation, not a descriptor you can earn by having a majority-Black student body today. Title III of the Higher Education Act of 1965 sets three tests: the school was established prior to 1964, its principal mission was the education of Black Americans, and it holds accreditation from a nationally recognized agency (or is progressing toward it).

That "prior to 1964" clause is why a predominantly Black institution founded in 1975 is a PBI, not an HBCU. The list is effectively closed. The U.S. Department of Education maintains the official designation through the White House Initiative on HBCUs.

The oldest is Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, founded in 1837 as the Institute for Colored Youth. Lincoln University (Pennsylvania, 1854) and Wilberforce University (Ohio, 1856) follow. Most HBCUs were founded between 1865 and 1900, many by church denominations and the Freedmen's Bureau, and 19 are public land-grant institutions created under the Second Morrill Act of 1890.

How many HBCUs there are right now (and why the number you saw is different)

You will see 99, 101, 102, 105, and 107 on the first page of search results. All five are defensible, and here is exactly why they diverge:

The four real sources of disagreement: (1) institutions that have closed but were never removed from the designation, (2) schools that lost accreditation and still operate, (3) two-year community colleges and branch campuses that four-year-focused lists drop, and (4) graduate-only institutions like Meharry Medical College and Morehouse School of Medicine.

So the honest answer to "how many HBCUs are there" in September 2026 is: 107 designated, about 100 you can realistically apply to for Fall 2027.

Who can attend

HBCUs admit students of every race, and always have. Non-Black students made up 24% of HBCU enrollment in 2022, up from 15% in 1976, per NCES. West Virginia State University and Bluefield State University both enroll predominantly non-Black student bodies today and remain federally designated HBCUs.

Total HBCU enrollment was about 289,000 in 2022, down from a 2010 peak near 327,000 but climbing again since.

The Fall 2027 reality: HBCU demand is at a record, and it changes how you should apply

HBCU applications have surged since the Supreme Court's June 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ended race-conscious admissions at selective colleges. The practical effect for a Class of 2027 applicant: the schools your older cousin got into with a 3.2 GPA and a late application may now have a deeper pool, a firmer deadline, and a housing waitlist.

Enrollment records set at public HBCUs

North Carolina A&T State University, the largest HBCU in the country, enrolled 15,275 students in fall 2025, a 6.7% year-over-year increase. It has set consecutive enrollment records. Several other public HBCUs, including flagship systems in Maryland, Texas and Louisiana, have reported record or near-record classes across the 2025 and 2026 cycles, with outlets including HBCU Gameday and The Root tracking the trend through fall 2026.

Growth is not evenly distributed. A handful of large publics are absorbing most of the surge while smaller private HBCUs, especially those under financial strain, are not.

Application volume at the flagship private HBCUs

Howard University received 36,393 applications for Fall 2024, a roughly 79% increase, according to acceptancerate.com's HBCU analysis. North Carolina A&T drew about 47,000 applications for the same cycle. Spelman College now sees roughly 12,000 applications for a first-year class in the low 500s.

Those are Ivy-adjacent application volumes at institutions that, fifteen years ago, admitted most of the students who applied.

What the surge means for your admit odds and your housing deposit

Three operational consequences:

1. Apply early, even where admission is rolling. At rolling-admission HBCUs, capacity fills. A January application to a school that opened its file in August competes for whatever is left.

2. Treat housing as a separate race. At several high-growth publics, on-campus housing is assigned by deposit date, not admit date. Read the housing page the day you are admitted.

3. Do not treat any HBCU as an automatic safety. Spelman, Howard and Morehouse are genuinely selective. NC A&T and Morgan State are competitive. Only the open-admission tier is a guaranteed yes.

All 107 HBCUs by state

Below is the federal designation list organized by state, with public/private status and level. Entries flagged as closed or unaccredited should not receive an application. Statuses reflect publicly reported information as of September 2026; accreditation can change mid-year, so verify any flagged school against its accreditor's directory before you apply.

Alabama (15 designated, 14 active): Alabama A&M University (public, 4-year), Alabama State University (public, 4-year), Bishop State Community College (public, 2-year), Gadsden State Community College, Valley Street campus (public, 2-year), J.F. Drake State Community and Technical College (public, 2-year), Lawson State Community College (public, 2-year), Shelton State Community College, C.A. Fredd campus (public, 2-year), H. Councill Trenholm State Community College (public, 2-year), Miles College (private, 4-year), Oakwood University (private, 4-year), Selma University (private, 4-year), Stillman College (private, 4-year), Talladega College (private, 4-year), Tuskegee University (private, 4-year), Concordia College Alabama (closed 2018).

Arkansas (4): Arkansas Baptist College (private), Philander Smith University (private, 4-year), Shorter College (private, 2-year), University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (public, 4-year).

Delaware (1): Delaware State University (public, 4-year).

District of Columbia (2): Howard University (private, 4-year), University of the District of Columbia (public, 4-year).

Florida (4): Bethune-Cookman University (private, 4-year), Edward Waters University (private, 4-year), Florida A&M University (public, 4-year), Florida Memorial University (private, 4-year).

Georgia (10): Albany State University (public, 4-year), Clark Atlanta University (private, 4-year), Fort Valley State University (public, 4-year), Interdenominational Theological Center (private, graduate), Morehouse College (private, 4-year), Morehouse School of Medicine (private, graduate), Morris Brown College (private, 4-year), Paine College (private, 4-year), Savannah State University (public, 4-year), Spelman College (private, 4-year).

Kentucky (2): Kentucky State University (public, 4-year), Simmons College of Kentucky (private, 4-year).

Louisiana (6): Dillard University (private, 4-year), Grambling State University (public, 4-year), Southern University and A&M College (public, 4-year), Southern University at New Orleans (public, 4-year), Southern University at Shreveport (public, 2-year), Xavier University of Louisiana (private, 4-year).

Maryland (4): Bowie State University (public, 4-year), Coppin State University (public, 4-year), Morgan State University (public, 4-year), University of Maryland Eastern Shore (public, 4-year).

Michigan (1): Pensole Lewis College of Business and Design (private).

Mississippi (8 designated, 7 active): Alcorn State University (public, 4-year), Coahoma Community College (public, 2-year), Hinds Community College, Utica campus (public, 2-year), Jackson State University (public, 4-year), Mississippi Valley State University (public, 4-year), Rust College (private, 4-year), Tougaloo College (private, 4-year), Mississippi Industrial College (closed).

Missouri (2): Harris-Stowe State University (public, 4-year), Lincoln University of Missouri (public, 4-year).

North Carolina (11): Barber-Scotia College (private, lost accreditation in 2004), Bennett College (private, 4-year), Elizabeth City State University (public, 4-year), Fayetteville State University (public, 4-year), Johnson C. Smith University (private, 4-year), Livingstone College (private, 4-year), North Carolina A&T State University (public, 4-year), North Carolina Central University (public, 4-year), Saint Augustine's University (private, accreditation under dispute; confirm current status), Shaw University (private, 4-year), Winston-Salem State University (public, 4-year).

Ohio (2): Central State University (public, 4-year), Wilberforce University (private, 4-year).

Oklahoma (1): Langston University (public, 4-year).

Pennsylvania (2): Cheyney University of Pennsylvania (public, 4-year, founded 1837), Lincoln University (public, 4-year, founded 1854).

South Carolina (8): Allen University (private, 4-year), Benedict College (private, 4-year), Claflin University (private, 4-year), Clinton College (private), Denmark Technical College (public, 2-year), Morris College (private, 4-year), South Carolina State University (public, 4-year), Voorhees University (private, 4-year).

Tennessee (7 designated, 6 active): American Baptist College (private), Fisk University (private, 4-year), Knoxville College (private, not currently enrolling), Lane College (private, 4-year), LeMoyne-Owen College (private, 4-year), Meharry Medical College (private, graduate), Tennessee State University (public, 4-year).

Texas (9): Huston-Tillotson University (private, 4-year), Jarvis Christian University (private, 4-year), Paul Quinn College (private, 4-year), Prairie View A&M University (public, 4-year), Southwestern Christian College (private), St. Philip's College (public, 2-year), Texas College (private, 4-year), Texas Southern University (public, 4-year), Wiley University (private, 4-year).

Virginia (5): Hampton University (private, 4-year), Norfolk State University (public, 4-year), Virginia State University (public, 4-year), Virginia Union University (private, 4-year), Virginia University of Lynchburg (private).

West Virginia (2): Bluefield State University (public, 4-year), West Virginia State University (public, 4-year).

U.S. Virgin Islands (1): University of the Virgin Islands (public, 4-year).

The states with the most HBCUs

Alabama leads with 14 active institutions, followed by North Carolina with 10 active (11 designated), Georgia with 10, Texas with 9, Mississippi with 7 active, and South Carolina with 8. Every HBCU sits in the South, the border states, the Midwest edge (Ohio, Michigan, Missouri), the mid-Atlantic, or the Caribbean. There are none on the West Coast or in New England.

Two-year and community college HBCUs most lists skip

About 14 designated HBCUs are two-year institutions, and several are campuses inside larger community college systems: the Valley Street campus of Gadsden State, the C.A. Fredd campus of Shelton State, and the Utica campus of Hinds Community College. Shorter College, Denmark Technical College, Coahoma, Bishop State, Lawson State, Drake State, Trenholm State, St. Philip's College and Southern University at Shreveport round out the group. If you plan to transfer into a four-year HBCU later, these are the cheapest on-ramp in the entire category.

The one HBCU outside the mainland US

The University of the Virgin Islands, with campuses on St. Thomas and St. Croix, is the only HBCU located outside the continental United States. It is public, four-year, and serves U.S. citizens, so federal aid applies normally.

HBCU acceptance rates: the four selectivity tiers

HBCU admissions is not one market. It is four. At the top, Spelman and Howard now reject most applicants. At the bottom, several institutions admit essentially everyone who submits a transcript. Building a list without understanding the tiers is how students end up with eight admits they don't want or zero they can afford.

School-level rates above come from acceptancerate.com's July 2026 HBCU analysis and federal IPEDS reporting. Where a range appears, it is because the school's own release and the federal dataset cover different cycles. Always cross-check the exact figure on the school's Common Data Set before you rely on it.

Highly selective: Spelman, Howard, Morehouse

Spelman is the most selective HBCU in the country and has been for several cycles, with roughly 12,000 applications for a small class. Howard's admit rate fell sharply after applications jumped 79% in a single year. Morehouse sits a tier below both but is no longer a school where a mid-B transcript is safe.

At this tier, treat the application exactly as you would a selective private college: a sharp essay, real depth in two or three activities, and a demonstrated reason you want that school. If your essay draft reads like it could be sent to any of the three with a name swap, it is not ready. Our breakdown of how admissions officers actually read essays covers what survives a seven-minute read.

Selective and rising

NC A&T, Morgan State, FAMU and Hampton have all absorbed large application increases. Admit rates in the 60s look forgiving until you notice that the honors college, the engineering major, and the guaranteed housing pool each run tighter than the university-wide number. Apply by the priority date at these schools or accept a materially worse outcome.

Accessible and rolling admission

This is the largest tier and where most HBCU applicants will find their targets: strong regional institutions admitting 60% to 80% of applicants, often on a rolling basis, often with automatic merit scholarships tied to a GPA and test score grid published on the admissions page. These grids are the single most underused piece of free money in HBCU admissions.

Open admission

Open-admission HBCUs, including the two-year institutions and a few four-year privates, admit applicants who meet a diploma or GED minimum. They are legitimate options and they are guaranteed landing spots. Every balanced list needs at least one.

How to place yourself: GPA and test-score reality check

Pull three numbers before you build a list: your unweighted GPA, your best SAT or ACT composite (if you have one), and your class rank if your school reports it. Then compare against each school's published middle 50%. If your GPA sits below the 25th percentile, that school is a reach regardless of its overall admit rate.

Many HBCUs remain test-optional for Fall 2027, but several tie automatic merit scholarships to test scores. Test-optional for admission does not mean test-optional for money. Read both pages. If you are unsure which part of your file is dragging, our guide to finding the weakest part of your college application gives you a diagnostic order to work in.

What an HBCU actually costs in 2026-27

HBCUs are cheaper, and the gap is measured in real dollars rather than adjectives. UNCF's 2025 Fact Sheet puts the average HBCU cost of attendance at $26,791 against $35,049 at comparable non-HBCU institutions. Tuition and fees at HBCUs run roughly 34% lower than at comparable institutions.

Sticker price vs net price: why the gap is bigger at HBCUs

Net price is what you actually pay after grants and scholarships that never have to be repaid, and it is the only number worth comparing across schools. At HBCUs the sticker-to-net gap is often wide because the student body is heavily Pell-eligible: UNCF reports that roughly 70% of HBCU students qualify for a Pell Grant, compared with about a third of undergraduates nationally.

The flip side is unmet need. HBCU endowments are small. Howard's, the largest in the category, sits near $1 billion, while several Ivy League endowments exceed $20 billion. That means less institutional grant aid per student and a higher chance that a gap in your package gets filled by loans or by a parent PLUS loan rather than by the school.

There is a structural reason. In September 2023, the Departments of Education and Agriculture sent letters to 16 governors documenting that their 1890 land-grant HBCUs had been underfunded by more than $12 billion over roughly three decades relative to their non-HBCU land-grant counterparts, with Tennessee State's shortfall alone estimated above $2 billion. That funding history shows up in facilities, financial aid staffing, and housing capacity. It is worth knowing before you are surprised by it.

Where the money comes from

Five stacked sources, in the order they should be worked:

1. Federal Pell Grant. Awarded through the FAFSA, never repaid. The maximum was $7,395 for the 2025-26 award year; Federal Student Aid publishes the 2027-28 maximum alongside the form.

2. State grants. Many states fund students attending in-state private HBCUs. Deadlines are often earlier than federal ones and are frequently first-come, first-served.

3. Institutional merit. The published GPA/test grids. Automatic, predictable, and the fastest way to cut a bill.

4. UNCF and TMCF. The United Negro College Fund serves 37 private HBCUs; the Thurgood Marshall College Fund serves publics. Both run scholarship programs with their own deadlines.

5. Outside scholarships. Local, corporate, and national. Our guide to college grants covers the application order, and if you need help with the writing, start with how to write a scholarship essay.

Running the numbers before you apply

Every college with federal aid must publish a net price calculator. Run it for all ten schools on your list before you apply, not after you are admitted. Fifteen minutes per school, and it will quietly reorder your list. When offers land in the spring, compare them line by line using our walkthrough on comparing financial aid packages, because two packages with the same headline total can differ by $12,000 a year in actual grant money.

How to apply: Common Black College Application vs Common App vs the school's own portal

This is the layer almost no HBCU list page covers, and it is the one that changes outcomes. There are three routes into an HBCU, they do not overlap cleanly, and picking wrong costs you either money or a school you wanted.

What the CBCA is and what it costs

The Common Black College Application is a single application, submitted once for one flat fee, that is distributed to participating HBCUs. The official fee published at commonblackcollegeapp.com is $20. Third-party guides quote $20, $35, or other figures because they were written in different years or included optional add-ons; the fee on the CBCA's own site at the time you apply is the one that governs.

Member counts published across guides range from 50 to 70-plus for the same reason. Membership changes each cycle. Open the current member directory on the CBCA site and check it against your own list rather than trusting any article's number, including this one.

The "top four" trap

The CBCA asks you to designate your top four school choices. Students routinely misread this as cosmetic. It is not: those four are the schools that drive your outcome, and picking them carelessly means your best offers come from schools you have no intention of attending.

Rank the four deliberately. Put your genuine first choice first. And know that submitting the CBCA does not mean you have applied to every HBCU in the country.

No fee waivers: when the CBCA is NOT the cheapest route

The CBCA does not accept fee waivers. Twenty dollars is a rounding error for most families, but it is not zero, and here is the case where it loses: if you qualify for a Common App fee waiver, which is granted to students who are Pell-eligible, on free or reduced lunch, or in similar circumstances, your Common App applications cost $0. Many HBCUs also run free application days in the fall through state HBCU weeks and direct-admission events.

So the decision rule is simple. Fee-waiver eligible? Use the Common App and school portals first, and add the CBCA only if it reaches schools you cannot reach otherwise. Not fee-waiver eligible? The CBCA is almost always the cheapest way to reach a wide set of HBCUs.

The big-name HBCUs that don't take the CBCA

Howard, Spelman and Morehouse are not CBCA members. Several other flagship HBCUs also require the Common App or their own portal. If those schools are on your list, you are filing separate applications with separate essays and separate deadlines, full stop. Check every school individually.

Cost-per-application math for a 10-school HBCU list

If your list includes Common App schools, the essay carries across all of them. Our breakdown of all seven Common App prompts is the fastest way to pick one and start drafting.

Your HBCU application timeline for Fall 2027

If you are a senior reading this in September 2026, you are applying for Fall 2027 entry and filing the 2027-28 FAFSA. Here is the calendar.

Now through October: list, FSA ID, transcripts

Build the list to ten schools with tier labels. Create your FSA ID at studentaid.gov and have your parent or contributor create theirs, because each ID takes up to three days to verify and a missing parent ID is the single most common reason a FAFSA stalls. Request transcripts and recommendation letters now.

October 1, 2026: the 2027-28 FAFSA opens

The FAFSA for the 2027-28 award year is scheduled to open by October 1, 2026. File in October. Some state grant programs and institutional aid pools are first-come, first-served, and at HBCUs where institutional grant money is limited, filing date can be worth thousands.

November 1: early action and early decision deadlines

Spelman's published first-year deadlines are November 1 for Early Decision and Early Action, with Regular Decision on February 1. Howard's Early Action deadline is also November 1. November 1 is the single densest date on the HBCU calendar; treat it as the real start of the season, not the middle.

Early Decision is binding. Do not apply ED anywhere you have not run the net price calculator, because you cannot walk away over money without a documented aid appeal.

Rolling and priority deadlines: why "rolling" does not mean "whenever"

Rolling admission means the school reviews applications as they arrive and issues decisions continuously until the class fills. The practical translation: applying in November and applying in March are not the same application, even at a school with a 70% admit rate. Scholarship pools, honors college seats, and housing all deplete. Our explainer on priority deadlines versus regular deadlines shows what you forfeit by missing the earlier date.

February 1: regular decision

February 1 is the most common HBCU regular decision date, with some schools running to February 15 or March 1. Confirm each school's exact date on its admissions page and put all ten in one calendar with reminders two weeks out.

Spring: comparing aid offers and the May 1 deposit

Offers arrive between March and mid-April. May 1 is National College Decision Day, the deadline to deposit at most four-year institutions. Two things to do before you commit: compare packages on net cost rather than headline totals, and submit your housing deposit the day you deposit, because on high-growth campuses the housing queue moves faster than the admissions queue.

HBCU vs PWI: a decision framework, not a debate

A PWI is a predominantly white institution, a descriptive term for any college where white students are the majority. The HBCU-versus-PWI argument online is usually tribal. It should be a fit question, and fit questions have inputs.

Six questions that actually predict fit

1. Does the school offer my exact program, with accreditation where it matters? A nursing program needs CCNE or ACEN accreditation; engineering needs ABET. This is a binary filter, not a preference.

2. What is my four-year net cost at each, after grants? Not sticker. Not "total aid." Net.

3. Where do I do my best work: in a place where I am part of the majority, or somewhere I will be one of a few? There is no correct answer. There is a correct answer for you, and you already know it.

4. Do I need a large alumni pipeline into a specific industry? HBCU networks are exceptionally strong in federal government, education, medicine, law, and a growing set of corporate pipelines. Some regional flagships are stronger in a specific local industry.

5. How far from home can I actually function? Flight cost times four round trips a year is a real line item.

6. What happens if I change my major? A small college with six majors is a risk if you are undecided.

When an HBCU is the stronger financial choice

When you are Pell-eligible and the HBCU's automatic merit grid stacks on top of Pell, the four-year cost difference against an out-of-state public can exceed $60,000. HBCUs also produce outsized outcomes per dollar: UNCF reports that HBCUs represent about 3% of U.S. colleges but award roughly 16% of the bachelor's degrees earned by Black students, and they are heavily represented among institutions producing Black graduates who go on to earn doctorates in science and engineering.

When a PWI or flagship wins on program-specific grounds

If you need a specific accredited program that no HBCU near you offers, if your in-state flagship gives you a tuition-free guarantee you would lose by leaving the state, or if you need a research lab in a niche subfield, the flagship wins on the merits. That is not a betrayal of anything. It is arithmetic.

Applying to both is the correct answer for most students

There is no rule requiring you to choose a category in October. Apply to four HBCUs and four non-HBCUs, compare eight net-price offers in April, and decide with real numbers in front of you. Students who pick a camp in the fall are deciding on the least information they will ever have.

The graduate school and employer question, answered honestly

An HBCU degree does not disadvantage you in graduate admissions or hiring, and the pipeline data supports that. What matters at the next stage is the same everywhere: GPA, research or internship experience, standardized test scores where required, and recommenders who know your work. A student who coasts at Howard is worse positioned than one who publishes at Jackson State.

Building a balanced HBCU college list

Eight to ten schools, sorted by admit probability, with the platform and deadline mapped for each. That is a finished list. Anything less is a wish list.

Two reaches, four targets, two likelies, applied to HBCUs

• Two reaches: schools where your GPA sits at or below their 25th percentile. Spelman, Howard and Morehouse are reaches for most applicants.
• Four targets: schools where you sit comfortably inside the middle 50%. This tier does most of the work, and it is where the automatic merit scholarships live.
• Two likelies: schools that admit most applicants and where you clear the numbers easily. At least one should be an open-admission or community college HBCU you would genuinely attend.

Mixing HBCUs and non-HBCUs on the same list

Run one list, not two. Sort by net cost and by fit, not by category. If you want ideas for strong non-HBCU options that stay affordable, our roundup of hidden gem colleges worth a spot on your list is a useful counterweight to a list built entirely from name recognition.

Deadline and platform mapping so nothing slips

For each school on your list, record five fields: application platform (CBCA, Common App, or portal), application deadline, priority or scholarship deadline, essay requirement, and whether fees are waived. Most applications that fail, fail here, not at the essay.

Matching scholarships to each school before you apply

Scholarship deadlines frequently land before admission decisions. Pull each school's merit grid and departmental awards in October, not March. A $4,000-a-year automatic award you missed by three weeks is the most expensive mistake in this entire process.

Turn this list into your list

Everything above is research. The part that decides outcomes is execution: ten schools, three platforms, a dozen deadlines, a FAFSA, and three or four essays running in parallel between October and February.

Unive is an AI college admissions platform built by Yale graduates that runs that operation in one workspace. College Matching sorts your reach, target and likely schools using your real numbers. The Application Roadmap maps every deadline and platform so a November 1 early action date does not sneak up on you. Essay Brainstorming and the Essay Grader give feedback on drafts before a reader ever sees them, and Scholarship Matching surfaces awards tied to the specific schools on your list. Students working through Unive see a 3.48x higher acceptance rate.

It is a paid subscription with no free tier, backed by a 7-day money-back guarantee, which puts it in a different universe from the $20,000 private consultants many families look at first. If you are weighing that trade-off, our analysis of what college consulting actually costs lays out the comparison. When you are ready, start building your list at unive.ai. You can also browse 600-plus schools in our college database to seed your first draft.

HBCU college FAQ

What does HBCU stand for?

HBCU stands for Historically Black College or University. Under Title III of the Higher Education Act of 1965, an HBCU is an accredited U.S. institution established before 1964 whose principal mission was and is the education of Black Americans. Because of the pre-1964 requirement, no new institution can become an HBCU; schools founded later that serve similar populations are designated Predominantly Black Institutions instead.

How many HBCUs are there in 2026?

There are 107 institutions on the U.S. Department of Education's HBCU designation list, of which roughly 99 to 102 are currently open and accredited. NCES counted 99 degree-granting HBCUs in 2022, split 50 public and 49 private nonprofit. The higher figures include closed campuses, unaccredited institutions, graduate-only schools, and two-year community college HBCUs that many list pages omit.

Can non-Black students attend HBCUs?

Yes. HBCUs admit students of all races and have for decades. Non-Black students made up 24% of HBCU enrollment in 2022, up from 15% in 1976, according to NCES. West Virginia State University and Bluefield State University both enroll predominantly non-Black student bodies while retaining federal HBCU designation. There is no racial eligibility requirement for admission or for institutional scholarships.

What is the hardest HBCU to get into?

Spelman College is the most selective HBCU, with a reported admit rate in the 19% to 25% range across recent cycles and roughly 12,000 applications for a first-year class in the low 500s. Howard University follows at approximately 30% for Fall 2024, after applications jumped about 79% to 36,393. Morehouse College is the third most selective.

Is the Common Black College Application worth it?

For most families, yes: one $20 fee reaches dozens of member HBCUs. Two caveats matter. The CBCA accepts no fee waivers, so students eligible for a Common App fee waiver can apply free through that route instead. And Howard, Spelman and Morehouse are not CBCA members, so those applications must be filed separately.

Are HBCUs actually cheaper?

Yes, by roughly $8,000 a year on average. UNCF's 2025 Fact Sheet puts average HBCU cost of attendance at $26,791 versus $35,049 at comparable non-HBCU institutions, with tuition and fees about 34% lower. Because endowments are smaller, though, institutional grant aid is thinner, so run each school's net price calculator rather than assuming the sticker gap survives after aid.

What is the oldest HBCU, and what is the largest?

Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, founded in 1837 as the Institute for Colored Youth, is the oldest HBCU. Lincoln University of Pennsylvania (1854) and Wilberforce University in Ohio (1856) follow. North Carolina A&T State University is the largest, enrolling 15,275 students in fall 2025, a 6.7% year-over-year increase and another consecutive enrollment record.

When is the FAFSA deadline for Fall 2027 entry?

Students entering college in Fall 2027 file the 2027-28 FAFSA, which is scheduled to open by October 1, 2026, at studentaid.gov. The federal deadline is late, but state grant programs and institutional aid at many HBCUs are awarded first-come, first-served, so file in October 2026 rather than waiting for individual school deadlines.