Historically Black Colleges: Full List, Cost & Odds 2027

25 min read

A junior in Houston tells her counselor she wants to apply to "the HBCUs." Her counselor asks which ones. She names three: Howard, Spelman, Prairie View. There are about a hundred more, sitting in 19 states plus Washington D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and several of them would cost her family less than the in-state public 40 minutes up I-45.

This page gives you the federal definition, the full operating roster with public/private labels, real net prices, admission odds, and the exact application routes and dates for Fall 2027 entry.

What a historically Black college is (and the one-sentence federal definition)

A historically Black college or university (HBCU) is an accredited U.S. institution that was established before 1964 with the principal mission of educating Black Americans. That test comes from the Higher Education Act of 1965, and the U.S. Department of Education maintains the official roster. Roughly 100 institutions qualify. All of them admit students of every race.

The Higher Education Act test

Three conditions have to be met at once. The school must have been founded before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Its historical and stated mission must have been the education of Black Americans. And it must be accredited by a nationally recognized accrediting agency, or making reasonable progress toward accreditation.

That last condition is the one people forget, and it is why the count moves. A school can hold the historical mission and the founding date and still drop off a working list because its accreditation lapsed.

The oldest is Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, founded in 1837 as the Institute for Colored Youth. Lincoln University (Pennsylvania) followed in 1854 and Wilberforce University in Ohio in 1856, both before emancipation. The bulk of the roster was built during Reconstruction by Black churches, the Freedmen's Bureau, and Northern missionary associations. A second wave arrived through the second Morrill Act of 1890, which pushed segregated states to fund Black land-grant colleges rather than lose federal money. Alabama A&M, Florida A&M, North Carolina A&T, Prairie View A&M, Southern University, Tennessee State and 13 others trace their public funding to that law.

HBCU vs PBI vs minority-serving institution

These three labels get swapped constantly, and they mean different things.

• HBCU is historical. The designation is earned by founding date and original mission, and it does not expire if the student body changes. Bluefield State University in West Virginia is still a federally designated HBCU even though its enrollment is now majority white.
• PBI (Predominantly Black Institution) is current and numerical. A PBI is a school where Black students are at least 40% of undergraduate enrollment, with additional low-income and program requirements, regardless of when it was founded. Chicago State and Medgar Evers College are PBIs, not HBCUs.
• MSI (minority-serving institution) is the umbrella term covering HBCUs, PBIs, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Tribal Colleges and others.

The practical difference for you is money: some scholarship funds are open to any MSI student, while UNCF programs are tied specifically to its member HBCUs.

Can non-Black students attend an HBCU?

Yes, and about a quarter already do. According to NCES Fast Facts, non-Black students made up 24% of HBCU enrollment in 2022, up from 15% in 1976. International students, Hispanic students and white students are all enrolled across the roster. No HBCU restricts admission by race; doing so would be illegal.

How many HBCUs are there? Why you'll see 99, 101, 105 and 107

There is no single correct number, and the honest answer is a range. NCES counts 99 (2022 data). UNCF and CollegeTuitionCompare both say 101. The Department of Education's own list page enumerates 105. Advocacy directories like thehundred-seven count 107, including three that have closed. The differences come from accreditation status, closures, branch campuses and whether graduate-only schools are included.

What actually changes the number

Four things move it.

Accreditation. Bennett College lost SACSCOC accreditation in 2019 and now operates under TRACS. Morris Brown College spent two decades unaccredited and regained accreditation in 2022. Saint Augustine's University has been in a public accreditation fight with SACSCOC since 2023. Depending on the week a list was compiled, these schools appear or vanish.

Closures. Concordia College Alabama closed in 2018. Saint Paul's College in Virginia closed in 2013. Barber-Scotia College in North Carolina has not held accreditation in years. Knoxville College still holds its designation and has been working toward reopening, but it is not currently enrolling a traditional degree-seeking class.

Branch campuses. Shelton State Community College's C.A. Fredd Campus and Gadsden State Community College's Valley Street Campus carry HBCU designation, while the parent colleges do not. Count the campus and you get a higher number. Count the college and you get a lower one.

Graduate-only institutions. Meharry Medical College, Morehouse School of Medicine, Charles R. Drew University, Interdenominational Theological Center and Southern University Law Center are designated HBCUs with no traditional freshman class. Undergraduate-focused rosters drop them.

How to verify a specific school before you apply

Two checks, five minutes. Search the school on the Department of Education's HBCU list to confirm federal designation, then pull its profile on College Scorecard to confirm it currently reports enrollment, net price and Title IV aid eligibility. If a school is not on Scorecard with recent data, federal student aid may not flow there, and that is a dealbreaker no matter how good the history is.

The full HBCU list by state

Below are the 105 operating institutions that carry federal HBCU designation, grouped by state, with control and level. Closed and unaccredited schools are listed separately after the table so you do not accidentally put one on your list.

Where the benches are deepest

Alabama carries the most institutions of any state at 14, largely because five two-year colleges and branch campuses hold the designation. North Carolina has 10 four-year schools, the strongest concentration of mid-size public and private options in one place. Georgia's 10 include the Atlanta University Center cluster (Spelman, Morehouse, Clark Atlanta, Morehouse School of Medicine), which functions as a shared-campus consortium where students cross-register. Texas has nine, Mississippi and South Carolina seven and eight.

Outside the South

Pennsylvania has two publics (Cheyney, Lincoln). Ohio has Central State and Wilberforce, sitting next door to each other in Greene County. Missouri has Harris-Stowe in St. Louis and Lincoln in Jefferson City. Michigan has one, Pensole Lewis College in Detroit, which regained its designation in 2022 as a design-focused school. California's only entry is Charles R. Drew University, a health sciences graduate institution in Los Angeles.

The University of the Virgin Islands is the outlier worth knowing: a public land-grant HBCU with campuses on St. Thomas and St. Croix, federal aid eligibility, and no passport needed for U.S. citizens.

Do not put these on your list

Concordia College Alabama (closed 2018), Saint Paul's College in Virginia (closed 2013), Barber-Scotia College in North Carolina (not accredited) and Knoxville College in Tennessee (not currently accredited or enrolling a traditional class). Verify Saint Augustine's University's accreditation standing directly with the school and with SACSCOC before applying, since its status has been contested since 2023.

HBCU costs: average tuition, net price, and why the sticker misleads

Across 101 HBCUs, average published tuition and fees run $7,719 for in-state students and $16,249 for out-of-state students (CollegeTuitionCompare, 2025). UNCF puts the full HBCU cost of attendance at $25,412 versus $35,049 at comparable non-HBCUs, roughly 27% lower. Those are sticker figures. What families actually pay, after grants, is the net price, and it is usually far lower.

Public versus private

The split matters more than the HBCU label. A public HBCU charges you state resident tuition if you live in the state, which is why Fayetteville State, Elizabeth City State and UNC-system pricing programs land some of the lowest four-year sticker prices in the country. A private HBCU like Spelman, Howard, Hampton or Tuskegee publishes a private-college sticker price in the $25,000 to $35,000 range for tuition alone, then discounts it heavily with institutional grants.

The result: a private HBCU can end up cheaper than a public one for a low-income family, and more expensive for a middle-income family that does not qualify for much need-based aid. Run both.

Pell is the center of gravity here

More than 70% of HBCU students are Pell-eligible, according to UNCF figures cited by U.S. News; PBS NewsHour has reported the figure above 60%. Either way, the majority of students at these schools come from families with incomes low enough to qualify for the maximum or near-maximum federal grant. That shapes everything about how HBCUs price: they are built to enroll Pell students and stack institutional aid on top, not to compete on merit discounts for high-income applicants.

The net price step most families skip

Every school receiving federal aid must publish a net price calculator. Ten minutes per school, with a tax return in hand, gets you a number that is dramatically more useful than any sticker price. Then compare offers line by line rather than by bottom-line total, because a $22,000 package that is half loans beats nothing. Our walkthrough on how to compare financial aid packages shows exactly how to separate grant money from borrowed money.

One more wrinkle: College Scorecard reports average annual net price by income band for every school on the roster. If your household income is under $30,000, look at that band, not the all-student average, which is inflated by higher-income families.

HBCU acceptance rates and admissions odds for Fall 2027

The average HBCU acceptance rate is about 68%, with an average SAT near 975 across 101 institutions (CollegeTuitionCompare, 2025). That average is genuinely misleading. It bundles open-access two-year colleges and regional publics admitting 80% or more with a handful of schools that now reject the majority of applicants, and the selective tier got harder after 2023.

The selective tier

A rough read of the most recent federal data for the best-known four-year schools:

These figures are rounded from the latest federal releases on College Scorecard. Where a school publishes a newer Common Data Set, the number can move several points in either direction, so pull the school's own most recent figure before you finalize your list. Net price is the all-income average; your band matters more.

Why odds tightened

After the Supreme Court's June 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ended race-conscious admissions at selective colleges, HBCU application volume surged. Clark Atlanta University reported roughly 31,000 applications for about 1,200 seats and closed its application portal early. Howard and Spelman both reported record volume. The category-level effect was to stabilize enrollment after a long decline: NCES recorded HBCU enrollment falling 11% from 327,000 in 2010 to 289,000 in 2022, and the post-2023 surge reversed direction at many campuses.

The practical consequence for a Fall 2027 applicant: at the top 10 or so HBCUs, treat November deadlines as real deadlines, not suggestions. Schools that used to read applications into spring are now filling classes early and closing portals.

What moves a decision

Most HBCUs remain test-optional or test-flexible, but many still use test scores for automatic merit scholarship tiers, which means a good score can be worth money even when it is not required for admission. GPA and course rigor carry the most weight at the publics, where admission is often formula-driven by GPA and test band. At the selective privates, the essay, recommendations and demonstrated interest all count, and Howard and Spelman both read for fit with institutional mission.

If you are not sure which tier of school your profile actually fits, our guide to finding the weakest part of your college application is a decent free diagnostic before you spend application fees.

Best HBCUs in 2026: what the rankings actually measure

Two rankings matter right now, and they measure different things. Forbes published its first-ever HBCU-only ranking on August 1, 2026: 20 schools split into 10 private and 10 public, with Howard University first among privates and North Carolina A&T first among publics, judged primarily on graduate earnings and debt. U.S. News ranks HBCUs only against each other, requires current federal designation, and refreshes with each Best Colleges edition.

Forbes' outcomes lens

The Forbes HBCU ranking is useful precisely because it ignores prestige inputs. It leans on what graduates earn and what they owe, which is the question most families are actually asking. Splitting private from public was the right call: comparing Spelman's cost structure to Fayetteville State's tells you nothing, while comparing Spelman to Hampton tells you something.

U.S. News' methodology lens

The U.S. News HBCU list is a peer-restricted version of its regular methodology, weighted toward graduation rates, retention, faculty resources and peer assessment. Spelman College has held the top spot for close to two decades. A refreshed edition is scheduled for release on September 22, 2026, so if you are reading this in mid-September, the HBCU order you see today changes within days.

The "Black Ivy League" label

You will see seven schools grouped this way: Dillard, Fisk, Hampton, Howard, Morehouse, Spelman and Tuskegee. It is a cultural shorthand for historic prestige and alumni networks, not a formal consortium and not an admissions tier. Use it to understand reputation, not to build a list. Plenty of strong HBCUs sit outside it, and Xavier University of Louisiana is the obvious example.

Program strength beats overall rank

• Xavier University of Louisiana has for years led the nation in Black graduates who go on to complete medical school, and it is developing its own medical school with Ochsner Health.
• North Carolina A&T is the largest HBCU in the country, reporting 15,275 students in fall 2025, up 6.7% year over year, and it produces more Black engineering graduates than any other U.S. institution.
• Spelman College competes in the national liberal arts category, not just the HBCU category.
• Howard University runs the deepest graduate footprint on the roster: medicine, law, dentistry, social work, business.
• Florida A&M and Texas Southern both operate law schools, and Texas Southern's Thurgood Marshall School of Law is a major pipeline for Black attorneys in Texas.

The outcomes case for the category is stark. UNCF's research finds HBCUs are about 3% of American colleges yet produce roughly 20% of all Black graduates and about 25% of Black graduates in STEM fields, and its economic impact work quantifies the earnings premium. Alumni lists make the same point differently: Martin Luther King Jr. (Morehouse), Thurgood Marshall (Lincoln, then Howard Law), Katherine Johnson (West Virginia State), Toni Morrison (Howard), Oprah Winfrey (Tennessee State), Stacey Abrams (Spelman), Kamala Harris (Howard), Spike Lee (Morehouse).

Build the list before you build the applications

Most students lose money on this process by applying to the wrong nine schools rather than the right six. Unive's college matching tool sorts HBCUs into reach, target and safety tiers against your actual GPA, coursework and test profile, then puts every deadline on one roadmap so a November priority date does not slip past you in October. Our profile evaluator tells you where your extracurricular record is thin while there is still time to fix it, and students working through the platform report a 3.48x higher acceptance rate than they started with.

It is a paid subscription with a 7-day money-back guarantee, which is a different order of magnitude from a $20,000 private counselor. If you want to sanity-check your shortlist first, start with our free college choice database and checklist quiz covering 600+ schools.

How to apply to HBCUs: three routes, one calendar

There are three ways in. The Common Black College Application (CBCA) is open for the 2026-2027 cycle, costs a $20 flat fee, sends your file to 50+ member HBCUs, and asks you to name a top four. The Common App serves Howard, Spelman, Morehouse, Tuskegee, FAMU, North Carolina A&T and Xavier of Louisiana, among others. The third route is the school's own institutional application or its state system portal.

Route 1: Common Black College Application

One form, one $20 payment, 50-plus schools. You rank a top four, and every member institution can review your file, which means admission offers and scholarship offers can arrive from schools you never specifically targeted. Two things to understand: member institutions may decline to process an application if you do not meet their requirements, and the CBCA is not a substitute for a school's own scholarship or honors-program application. Many districts distribute fee-waiver codes, so ask your counselor before you pay.

This route is unmatched for volume and price. It is weaker if your target is a single selective school that wants a supplemental essay and demonstrated interest.

Route 2: Common App

Use the Common App when your top choices are the selective privates and flagship publics that accept it. You get essay real estate, recommendation infrastructure, and the same file you are already sending to non-HBCUs on your list. Fee waivers are available through the Common App itself if you meet the eligibility criteria.

Route 3: institutional and state-system applications

Some publics only take their own application or a state portal. Others, like several UNC-system and Alabama schools, prefer their own form for scholarship consideration even when they accept a common platform. Always check whether the school routes scholarship review through a separate application with an earlier deadline.

Which route to pick

That last row is the trap. Submitting to the same school through two routes can create duplicate records and stall your file while an office reconciles them. Pick one channel per school and stick to it.

The Fall 2027 calendar

• Now through October 2026: finalize your list, request recommendations, draft essays.
• October 1, 2026: the 2027-28 FAFSA is expected to be available, per the availability requirement in federal law. File it as early as you can at studentaid.gov; several HBCU aid programs award until funds run out.
• November 1 and November 15, 2026: early action and early decision rounds at the selective privates, including Spelman and Howard. At many publics these dates double as the priority scholarship deadline.
• December 2026 through February 2027: regular deadlines. Howard's regular round runs into February; many publics read on a rolling basis but fill honors and scholarship cohorts long before.
• January through April 2027: national HBCU scholarship deadlines (UNCF, TMCF and corporate partners) cluster here, with some summer cycles behind them.
• May 1, 2027: national decision day.

Confirm each school's exact dates on its admissions page, because priority dates shift year to year. If you are unclear on what a priority deadline actually buys you, we broke down the mechanics in priority deadline vs regular deadline.

HBCU-only money: scholarships most applicants never search for

Two national funds exist specifically for HBCU students, and they are split by school type. UNCF serves 37 member private HBCUs and administers 400+ named scholarship programs. The Thurgood Marshall College Fund serves 47 public HBCUs and PBIs. Which one you can use depends entirely on whether your school is public or private, and most applicants never check.

UNCF (private HBCUs)

The UNCF scholarship portal runs a single application that matches you to programs you qualify for, which is a meaningful time saver over applying to 400 awards separately. The UNCF General Scholarship requires a minimum 2.5 GPA and demonstrated unmet financial need, with awards commonly starting around $2,000. Named and corporate-funded programs inside the UNCF system run far larger, and many are renewable. The fund also administers the Gates Scholarship-adjacent and STEM-specific programs with their own criteria.

Thurgood Marshall College Fund (public HBCUs)

TMCF scholarships are open to students at its member public HBCUs and PBIs. The flagship TMCF scholarship award sits around $6,800 and is renewable, and corporate-partner awards through TMCF reach the $15,000 to $20,000 range, often bundled with internships and recruiting pipelines at the sponsoring company. TMCF's leadership institutes are worth applying to on their own merits, separate from the cash.

Institutional merit is the fastest money

At most HBCUs, the automatic merit scholarship is awarded off the admission application, using GPA and sometimes test score, with no separate form. That means your early deadline is functionally your scholarship deadline. Apply in November and you are in the pool; apply in February and the pool may be empty even though admission is still open. This single sequencing mistake costs families more money than any essay error.

Stack in this order

1. FAFSA for Pell and federal aid, filed as early as possible in October 2026.

2. State grants, which often have their own deadlines tied to the FAFSA (Georgia HOPE, Florida Bright Futures, Tennessee HOPE and others).

3. Institutional merit and need aid from each HBCU, triggered by early application.

4. UNCF or TMCF, depending on whether your school is private or public.

5. Corporate and local awards, which are the least competitive per dollar because almost nobody applies.

For the mechanics of federal and state grant money specifically, our complete grants for college guide covers eligibility and filing order in detail.

Get the scholarship matching done before November

Unive's scholarship matching runs your GPA, intended major, state, demographics and financial profile against live award databases, including HBCU-specific funds, and surfaces the ones you actually qualify for with their deadlines attached to your roadmap. The essay grader gives you feedback on scholarship essays and Common App essays in the same workspace, and you can add 1-on-1 sessions with mentors who graduated from top schools when a draft needs a human read.

The platform was built by a Yale graduate for exactly the family that cannot write a $20,000 check to a private consultant. Paid subscription, 7-day money-back guarantee, everything in one place. Start with Unive and get your Fall 2027 roadmap built before the November deadlines land.

Historically black colleges FAQ

What does HBCU stand for?

HBCU stands for Historically Black College or University. The Higher Education Act of 1965 defines one as an accredited institution founded before 1964 whose principal mission was and is the education of Black Americans. The designation is historical, based on founding date and original mission, and does not change if the racial composition of the student body changes.

How many HBCUs are there?

It depends on the source. NCES counted 99 in its 2022 data, UNCF and CollegeTuitionCompare say 101, roughly 102 are currently accredited, the U.S. Department of Education's list page enumerates 105, and advocacy directories count 107 including three closed schools. The differences come from accreditation status, closures, branch campuses and graduate-only institutions.

Are HBCUs only for Black students?

No. HBCUs admit students of all races and always have. NCES data shows non-Black students made up 24% of HBCU enrollment in 2022, up from 15% in 1976. Bluefield State University in West Virginia retains its HBCU designation with a majority-white student body. No HBCU restricts admission by race.

How much does an HBCU cost?

Average published tuition and fees across 101 HBCUs run $7,719 in-state and $16,249 out-of-state (CollegeTuitionCompare, 2025). UNCF puts total HBCU cost of attendance at $25,412 versus $35,049 at comparable non-HBCUs. Actual cost after grants is usually far lower, since more than 70% of HBCU students are Pell-eligible. Run each school's net price calculator.

What is the Common Black College Application and what does it cost?

The Common Black College Application is a single application that sends your file to more than 50 member HBCUs for a $20 flat fee. The 2026-2027 cycle is open now for Fall 2027 entry. You designate a top four schools, and member institutions may decline to process an application if you do not meet their specific requirements. Many districts issue fee-waiver codes.

Do HBCUs accept the Common App?

Many do, including Howard, Spelman, Morehouse, Tuskegee, Florida A&M, North Carolina A&T and Xavier University of Louisiana. Others accept only their own institutional application or a state system portal. Avoid applying to the same school through both the Common App and the CBCA, since duplicate files can stall processing.

Which are the best HBCUs in 2026?

Forbes published its first HBCU-only ranking on August 1, 2026, naming Howard University the top private HBCU and North Carolina A&T the top public, judged on graduate earnings and debt. U.S. News ranks HBCUs against each other, with Spelman College holding the top spot for nearly two decades. Program strength often matters more than overall rank.

Which HBCU is the hardest to get into?

Spelman College and Howard University are typically the most selective, both admitting roughly a third to 40% of applicants in recent federal data, with Florida A&M, Hampton and Tuskegee close behind. The category average is about 68%, so most HBCUs remain accessible. Application volume at the selective tier rose sharply after the 2023 Supreme Court affirmative action decision.

Are there HBCUs outside the South?

Yes. Pennsylvania has Cheyney and Lincoln, Ohio has Central State and Wilberforce, Missouri has Harris-Stowe and Lincoln University, Michigan has Pensole Lewis College, California has Charles R. Drew University, and Washington D.C. has Howard and the University of the District of Columbia. The University of the Virgin Islands is a public land-grant HBCU in the Caribbean.