Last week I had a chance to serve as a guest blogger for the New York Times. That was definitely very cool. I am going to post a few of them over the next week.

The Prez

Q.Given today’s economic climate, how are historically black colleges and universities able to remain competitive for students of all skills and abilities? Some traditional Ivy League universities have very attractive programs designed to lure black students with four-year scholarships. —Philip Oricke

A.Dr. Kimbrough responds: For the most part, historically black colleges and universities have always recruited a very diverse student, from those who are at the highest levels of academic talent who are being courted by every school, including Ivies, to students who barely got out of high school but want to attend college even though they need quite a bit of remediation. This is a great task, but I think there have been successes throughout this spectrum of ability.

After Brown v. Board of Education, every college wanted black students. So historically black colleges and universities went from having all the students to themselves to sharing students. When critical masses of black students ended up on other campuses, these students began pushing not only for more black students but also for black faculty and staff, relevant curricula, etc. In an effort to meet these demands, institutions began developing extensive programs to “buy” black students. Texas A&M had one where there was $500,000 used solely to make counter offers to students of color.

But the richest colleges have not significantly increased their numbers of black students. The main reason is that as a whole, black students have lower test scores than whites. The richest schools are very cognizant of their U.S. News rankings, which reward them for the level of preparedness of their student body. While a Harvard, which makes enough money on its endowment every two weeks to pay a year’s tuition for all of its undergraduates, could offer free rides to any black student it wanted to, they still want those with perfect ACT and SAT scores, and those students are few and far between.

Lots of institutions are now boasting about programs that ensure lower- and middle-class students can attend at no cost, but few have reported the success of these programs with raw numbers. The reason? Very few students are benefiting because they still want a certain student, and bringing in lots of solid students with lower scores will hurt rankings.

But on a more basic level, there is still a great deal of racial tension on college campuses these days. The “Compton Cookout” party at U.C. San Diego (and subsequent noose on campus) and the littering of the cultural center lawn with cotton balls at the University of Missouri — both within the last month — remind students and their families that there is a chance they may enter an environment filled with daily racial micro-aggressions like these.

A free ride is great, but peace of mind is priceless.