A new documentary in collaboration with U.S. Congresswoman Alma Adams is taking a deeper look into the history of underfunded Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and the need to protect them.
“Of all of the civil rights for which the world has struggled and fought for for 500 years, the right to learn is undoubtedly the most fundamental,” Adams, who represents North Carolina’s 12th Congressional District, says in the opening of the trailer for “The Price of Excellence,” a new doc from The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank.
HBCUs have been wholly underfunded for decades, according to in-depth policy research by TCF Senior Fellow Dr. Denise A. Smith, who has analyzed the unequal treatment and funding HBCUs receive compared to non-HBCU institutions of higher learning.
In 2023, the Biden administration sent letters to state governors about land-grant HBCUs, which are publicly funded through matched state contributions. States owed those HBCUs, most established in 1890 amid deep racial segregation post-Civil War, more than $13 billion for a period of 30 years.
HBCUs saw record funding totaling more than $17 billion during the administration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, a graduate of Howard University, an HBCU in Washington, D.C. President Donald Trump has not committed to that level of investment into HBCUs. However, he previously claimed the institutions wouldn’t see cuts. In his budget proposal released in May, Trump included $64 million in cuts to Howard.
“Land grant HBCUs have produced world-class doctors, engineers, teachers, business leaders with access to only a fraction of the funding of their white counterparts,” Smith says in the trailer for “The Price of Excellence,” which will premiere on Sept. 25 during the Congressional Black Caucus’ Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C., during Congresswoman Adams’ hosted panel.
According to The Century Foundation, the documentary dissects the “deep historical processes and complex data that impact underlying endowment practices, state appropriations, and funding gaps, painting a poignant picture: a transformative social institution hampered by the same biases it sought to address.”
The doc was entirely filmed on the campus of North Carolina A&T University, an HBCU, and aims to put viewers in the shoes of real students, professors, and policymakers who are “still hopeful that the grass will one day be just as green on their side of the fence.”
In addition to Adams, who is the co-founder of the Bipartisan HBCU Caucus, “The Price of Excellence” also features Adams, Atlantic journalist Adam Harris, Dr. Katherine Wheatle with the Equity Research Cooperative, and historian Dr. Jelani M. Favors, a former professor at North Carolina A&T University who serves as VP for the Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute at the United Negro College Fund.
