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Endowments rise for historically black colleges and universities amid social justice era - YouTube
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social injustice and racial inequity has
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inspired a new generation of donations
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to historically black colleges and
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universities the united states has more
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than 100 hbcus located in 19 states as
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well as the district of columbia and the
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u.s virgin islands although historically
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black colleges and universities were
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originally founded to educate black
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students they enroll students of other
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races as well
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social issues and the high demand to
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attend these institutions has set off a
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new wave of donations the total
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endowment for the top 10 hbcus combined
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is a little over 2 billion
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while the endowment for harvard
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university is more than 40 billion
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dollars
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hbcus lag behind most predominantly
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white institutions when it comes to
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university endowments for more on this i
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want to bring in the president of
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virginia state university makola
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abdullah president abdullah welcome
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thank you for joining us
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according to the century foundation data
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from recent years shows that on average
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endowments at public non-historically
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black colleges and universities are
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three times the size of those of public
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hbcus among private institutions private
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non-hbcu endowments are seven times the
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size of those of private hbcus
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what is really behind these numbers and
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this kind of inequity
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well see there's there's two really main
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reasons uh the first one is is obvious
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and you kind of stated it uh as you did
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your intro really the historic
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underfunding of our institution uh as
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we've gotten funds to to make our
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campuses better to make student life
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better we've had to use them in the
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moment and not necessarily save them uh
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and push them forward in the form of
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endowments uh the other is that we have
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been committed from the very beginning
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to giving everyone who needs an
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opportunity
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to give them that chance whether it's to
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chase the american dream or to change
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their lives uh that we've always been in
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that business and so what that means is
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is our ability to generate wealth from
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our loans will lag behind
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those institutions that are that are
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enrolling wealthier students and
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enrolling uh students from wealthier
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families and so one we're committed uh
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to our mission of making sure that
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everyone gets an opportunity uh and two
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we really need to look at the uh
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correction of the historic underfunding
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of our institutions
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historically black colleges and
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universities have helped to launch many
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successful careers including howard
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university alum vice president kamala
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harris tennessee state university alum
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oprah winfrey
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how do you think the success of
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prominent alums has changed the
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narrative and fundraising efforts of
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hbcus
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i think that's one of the most fantastic
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things that we have at our institutions
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and i am also an alum of while president
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of virginia state university i'm an alum
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of howard university and very proud of
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our vice president kamala harris um but
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our alums when they leave our
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institutions uh they're the ones that
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really create the brand to create the
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energy of our hbcus they're the ones
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that help young people understand that
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you can get there from here wherever
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you're trying to go
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that you can get there from our hbc news
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and the more that our alums continue to
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have uh success uh the more that uh
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donors uh the more the private
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philanthropy the more that we get
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corporate investments uh the more that
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alums continue to give uh give back to
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our institutions and that's critically
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important
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and lawmakers have an opportunity to
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pump trillions of dollars into hbcus
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from president biden's build back better
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plan what do you believe is standing in
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the way of those funds and how do you
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see that money as impacting black
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institutions such as
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yours well i'll tell you this i think
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when you when you start to look at the
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historic underfunding and you start to
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map it out there's really three ways
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that you can really see it one of them
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we discussed earlier is the size of our
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endowments compared to other
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institutions you mentioned that the top
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10 hbcus have about 2.1
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billion dollars but if i was to take
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that further the all of our hbcus have
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endowments less than 2.5 billion dollars
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if you put all of our hbcus together uh
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and there's more than 50 into other
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institutions that have endowments bigger
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than the totality of the endowments in
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our hbcus uh also uh though not just
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endowments but deferred maintenance and
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level of deferred maintenance that we
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have at our institutions and the amount
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of debt that we have that we've used to
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build and maintain our facilities and to
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drive our infrastructure and so when we
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talk about the
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possible
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trillions of dollars the dollars from
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the federal government to for our
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institutions uh those are really to uh
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correct underfunding of our institutions
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to provide access to critical
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infrastructure needs to make sure that
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our faculty and staff many of whom are
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very qualified to tackle the problems of
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the day have the resources
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that they need to tackle whether it's
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climate change or criminal justice
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reform to be able to add to the the
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conversation of the nation uh and so
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we're very excited um that so many
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including uh congresswoman alma adams
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and and our congress folks in in
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virginia bobby scott tim kaine mark
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warner um have really shown a level of
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commitment to our hbcus and we're
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excited to see this come to pass
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president of virginia state university
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makola abdullah thank you so much for
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joining us we appreciate your time
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thank you
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