Black Enterprise-Listed - listing of top 50 colleges for African American students

Black Issues in Higher Education, Dec 24, 1998 by Desda Moss

A new college ranking, designed to help students and their parents evaluate an institution's academic and social appeal for African Americans, hits newsstands.

WASHINGTON -- A new list ranking the nation's "Top 50" colleges for African American students is attracting attention from list-leary academics and rekindling debate over the merits of ratings.

The list, featured in this month's Black Enterprise magazine, could influence the decisions made by more than 500,000 African American freshmen who will start college next year.

Published by Black Enterprise magazine and DayStar Research, the list ranked Spelman College and Morehouse College first and second respectively. Another Atlanta institution, Clark Atlanta University, was ranked fourth.

The list, developed by Dr. Thomas LaVeist, a sociologist and an associate professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University, was designed to help make choosing a school less daunting for today's college-bound African American students and their parents.

LaVeist asked 1,077 African American higher education professionals to rate colleges by the academic and social environments that are provided for African American students.

Florida A&M University, last year's Time magazine "College of the Year," ranked third on the Black Enterprise/DayStar list. The other institutions filling out the top ten are: Howard University, Washington, D.C.; Xavier University, New Orleans; Hampton University, Hampton, Va.; Tuskeegee University, Tuskegee, Ala.; North Carolina A&T University, Greensboro, N.C.; and Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.

HBCU's in general scored high marks on the list. While they accounted for only 10 percent of all the colleges LaVeist surveyed, they represented nearly 50 percent of the colleges on the list. Nationally, HBCU's enroll approximately 35 percent of all Black college students.

Black Enterprise joins the list of magazines, including U.S. News and World Report and Money that publish popular editions ranking colleges and universities. Although college and university officials dislike the lists, they recognize that students and parents use the lists to select college.

"Oh God," groaned Joyce Smith, executive director of the National Association of Admissions Counselors, when she learned of the list. Smith said she feared anxious students and parents might put too much stock in it without doing their own research.

"We all pay attention but I think this type of information has to be used responsibly. I don't mean to take anything away from the research but the whole notion that college selection can be reduced to a kind of Consumer Reports diminishes the need for students and their families to find out what's the best match."

To be included on the list, a school had to be an accredited four-year college with a Black enrollment of at least 1.5 percent, or be large enough and well-known enough to attract interest from Black students. Schools were divided into categories such as national universities, national liberal arts colleges, regional universities, and regional liberal arts colleges.

Audrey Forbes Manley, M.D., who became president of top-ranked Spelman last October, is delighted with her institution's rating.

"It's great news for us. We're very pleased and very proud that Black Enterprise has validated what we at Spelman have long believed and it also underscores the role HBCUs have in providing opportunities for African American students."

Patrick Swygert, president of fifth-ranked Howard University, predicted that "every university on the list will see that it's distributed and put into their admissions packets. I hope it encourages institutions to strive to make it to the top 50."

Perhaps sensing the disagreement that lists like this often generate, LaVeist is quick to point out that even though an institution may not have made the list, that doesn't mean that it doesn't offer a nurturing environment for African American students.

"I expect there are going to be some schools that question the ranking," he says.

"You have to remember, there are more than 3,200 colleges and universities in the country. There are a lot of excellent schools that are not going to be on the list, but that's not to say they wouldn't be good schools for African American students," LaVeist continues.

LaVeist, 37, says it was while he was a graduate student teacher at the University of Michigan that he first recognized the need for a tool that African American students could use in selecting a college.

LaVeist cautions those who will use the list that it's merely a guide and that other factors -- like a student's personality, financial needs, and academic interests -- must also be considered.

"This list is meant to help people separate perception from reality so they can make an informed decision," LaVeist says. "But making that decision should involve the student, their parents, and a trusted adviser -- someone who knows the student."

The energetic researcher's next project is a college guide for African-American students to be published in 1999 by Stanley Kaplan and Simon & Schuster publishers. Although the book won't rank colleges and universities, it will draw from surveys of African American educators.