50 years and going strong - United Negro College Fund

Black Enterprise, Sept, 1994 by Mark Lowery

Such questions may always be raised, but there's no debate that total enrollment at UNCF schools have steadily increased since 1986 and costs have remained low. In 1993, the average cost of tuition and fees at UNCF colleges was $4,848, which is considerably less than the fees charged by other private colleges nationally.

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At Spelman, enrollment applications increased 92% from 1986-1991. Since then, applications have increased by 11%. Johnnetta Cole, Spelman's president, believes black college students are becoming more discerning in choosing schools that will better serve their interests.

"What we give these students is a quality education in an atmosphere that affirms their existence--at half the cost of the private Ivys," says Cole, perhaps UNCF's most visible and well-known college president. "The best justification in the world is that we graduate a proportion of [black] students that is way beyond anything being done by the PWIs [Predominately White Institutions]."

Spelman has been recognized as one of the best education buys in the country by both U.S. News & World Report and Money magazine.

Gray and others at UNCF have determined that, to a large extent, the future success of their schools will hinge upon their ability to preserve what they do well, while connecting into what's happening elsewhere.

Recently, UNCF announced an expansion of its student exchange program with Israeli schools and of its National Center for Black-Jewish Relations at Dillard University. UNCF also announced that a delegation of its college presidents would travel to Israel. The organization has a history of taking proactive stances on contemporary issues--in this case, reported deteriorating relations between blacks and Jews--and using them to benefit its institutions. It also has an uncanny ability--dating back to Rockefeller's charitable donations--to get corporate America to support its cause, in a sense convincing them that black minds are terrible things to waste. It is a slight variation of Rev. Jesse Jackson's often used phrase, "We can send them [our children] to Yale, or we can send them to jail"--substituting the names of Philander Smith, Talladega, LeMoyne-Owen and Wilberforce for Yale.

In April, Bloomberg Financial Markets donated 83 terminals to UNCF member colleges. The terminals, which are used by stock brokers and financial analysts, will allow UNCF schools to create databases, analyze securities, access job listings and monitor Bloomberg's news wire.

"We are committed to enhancing education by providing cutting edge technology that gives students real world experience and prepares them with the skills they need for future employment," Michael Bloomberg, president of the Bloomberg Financial Markets, said in announcing the donation.

To make each of its schools more competitive, UNCF has created a database that provides each institution with access to information on funding resources. "That's no different from what the development director at Harvard or Yale already has in his office. And they are the people we're competing with," Gray says, sounding more and more like a preacher focusing on the Scripture. "I think it's great that my son and your son can now go to Duke or Vanderbilt. But we're going to give them a nurturing environment in addition to a good education."