Would it surprise our readers to know that applications submitted on the Common Black College Application, an application exclusively for historically Black colleges and universities, have skyrocketed in recent years? In fact, applications reached about 40,000 strong this year, four-times the amount submitted in 2016. And enrollment at these institutions is on the rise as well — even as enrollment figures decline at less selective American universities (though not at our nation’s elite universities which continue to deny admission to the great majority of applicants). So why the boon for the HBCUs?

As Erica L. Green reports for The New York Times in a piece entitled “Why Students Are Choosing H.B.C.U.s: ‘4 Years Being Seen as Family’,” “Once the primary means for Black Americans to get a college education, historically Black colleges and universities, or H.B.C.U.s, now account for just 9 percent of such students. But top-tier H.B.C.U.s — long bastions of Black excellence — as well as others are increasingly becoming the first choice for some of the nation’s most sought-after talent, according to interviews with dozens of students, guidance counselors, admissions advisers and college officials across the country. They belong to a generation whose adolescence was shaped not only by the election of the first Black president but also by political and social strife that threatened the lives and liberties of Black Americans.”

We absolutely love that America’s historically Black colleges and universities are experiencing this renaissance in recent years, though we wish this boom was not — at least in part — motivated by horrific police brutality committed against so many Black Americans. The HBCUs are an indelible part of the historic landscape of American higher education and they deserve to compete with their Ivy League peers for the very best and brightest students.