HBCUs are booming. So is a question nobody's answering. 📈

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Okay, HBCU family... let's get into it. 📚

Because September did NOT come to play.

NC A&T got crowned. Four North Carolina HBCUs posted enrollment records in the same week. Howard's already out here searching for its next president. That's the kind of month that makes the group chat go "we are SO back."

Real talk: there's a harder story sitting right next to all of it. Black men are choosing trade schools over HBCUs at a growing rate, and the "why" is bigger than anything that fits in a caption.

We're not skipping that conversation this month. We're leading with it.

Let's get into it. 👇🏾

HBCUs Have a Gender Gap Problem. Here's What's Actually Behind It.

A HBCU Roundup exclusive.

Let's talk about it, because this one's been sitting with us. 📚

Here's the number that should stop you: men now make up less than 37% of HBCU students nationwide.

That's not a typo. That's the gap.

And here's the part that catches people off guard.

HBCU enrollment overall is up: about 1% since 2018, back over 300,000 students. Every other type of college is still sliding. HBCUs are winning that fight.

But zoom in on gender, and the picture flips. Black male enrollment in higher education dropped 4% in that same window. At HBCUs specifically, it dropped about 3%.

Meanwhile, Black men's enrollment in trade schools, welding, HVAC, electrical work, climbed 15% since 2018.

Meet Jaden Vann. Twenty years old. Spent most of high school with one plan: play football, get recruited, go to an HBCU. Then his ankles and knees had other plans. So he leaned into a welding pathway he'd started almost on a whim back in eighth grade. Nine months out of high school? He was a professional pipe welder pulling $31 an hour, above what most welders start at.

"I kind of lost passion for playing football," Vann said. "So I went with Plan B."

He's not anti-college. He's not anti-HBCU. He's doing the same math a lot of young Black men are doing right now: debt, timeline, and how fast you get to take care of yourself and the people counting on you.

And the people inside HBCUs know it.

"HBCU used to be the thing," said Georgette Brown Kimball, a retired North Carolina educator who now runs a scholarship fund and the Roanoke Valley HBCU Collaborative Association. "But for 10 to 15 years, I didn't hear that as much, because kids were not being routed to attend our HBCUs."

She credits visibility for that shift over the last two or three years. Kamala Harris's Howard degree, she says, did more for HBCU name recognition than any marketing budget could.

At Clark Atlanta, the student body runs roughly 75% female. Patrick Turner leads the school's Brotherhood Circle there, a mentorship and mental health program built to keep young men enrolled and engaged.

"It also makes you question: why are our males not choosing higher education? Where are they going? What are they doing?" Turner said.

His program frames mental health support as visits to a "consultant," not a "counselor," on purpose, to sidestep the stigma. Because the real block, he says, isn't intelligence.

"Being intelligent is not a weakness," Turner said.

Let that sink in.

Roderick Heath, vice chancellor at Fayetteville State, put it the plainest: "We need Black doctors, we need lawyers, we need Black men in all aspects of the world. Not having Black men on college campuses is a disservice to humanity."

But he's not here to shame anybody into a classroom. His pitch is bigger: blur the line between the trades and the degree. Night classes. A barber school built into the curriculum. Electives that lead to a license, not just a transcript.

"If I were a chancellor of a university, we would offer things like that," Heath said. "I think we need a little combination of the two."

Here's the part that stays with us, though. Heath pointed to Howard's mass unenrollment of hundreds of students this summer. That's exactly the kind of moment, he said, that pushes a young Black man back toward the trades for good.

"If I'm a Black male and I said, 'Boy, I got into Howard,' then all of a sudden I get a letter telling me I'm not going, that young man might say, 'You know what? I ain't even going to college. Let me go get a trade,'" Heath said. "We set students up for disappointment."

$31 an hour beating a lot of degrees on day one is real. Nobody in this piece is arguing otherwise, and this isn't about Black men picking the "wrong" path.

What's really at stake here is trust. Can HBCUs show up consistently enough, financially and structurally, that a young Black man doesn't have to choose between his community and his bank account?

That's the work. ✊🏾

Where do you land on this: curriculum, money, or visibility? Hit reply, we're reading every single response.

HBCU Lifestyle

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Undergrads at UNCF-member HBCUs majoring in business, STEM, or related fields for 2026-2027.

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📅 Deadline: Wednesday, September 30, 2026

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HBCUs Are Having a Moment. All of Them, At Once.

Y'all already saw it on our socials this week. 👀 U.S. News dropped its 2027 Best Colleges rankings, and North Carolina A&T just ended Florida A&M's seven-year run as the No. 1 public HBCU in the country.

But the crown changing hands isn't even the real headline.

Spelman just logged its 20th consecutive year as the No. 1 HBCU overall. Twenty years. Let that sink in.

Howard posted the highest overall university ranking in its history: No. 73 among every national university in the country, public or private.

Tuskegee climbed to No. 3 among HBCUs. Its president called it "an exclamation point" on what the school's calling its Renaissance Era.

Winston-Salem State jumped 11 spots, the biggest single-year jump of any returning school in the top 25.

Talladega College picked up five distinctions this cycle, up from three last year, under a president who took office in July 2025.

Even FAMU, the school that lost the HBCU crown, had its best-ever showing among all public universities nationally, climbing 13 spots to No. 79.

"Our responsibility as a public, land-grant HBCU is to bring academic excellence and opportunity together," said NC A&T Chancellor James R. Martin II. "These results reflect progress across the university, particularly in high-demand disciplines that are vital to our state and nation."

Real ones know rankings like this don't come out of nowhere. NC A&T being named the top public HBCU isn't just a U.S. News call. Forbes named them the same thing last month. So did the Wall Street Journal and College Pulse in 2025. Three separate ranking systems. Same answer.

Rankings aren't everything. But when this many schools climb in the same season, that's a trend. 📈

➡️ Full 2027 HBCU Top 25

A WSSU Legacy Just Got Crowned Ms. Black USA

Winston-Salem State, we see you. Twice this month, actually. 👑

Brandi Hopson, WSSU Class of 2015, just won the 2026 Ms. Black USA pageant. She qualified through her title as Miss Black North Carolina USA.

Hopson made her name at WSSU on the school's acclaimed cheerleading squad, then chased an NFL cheer spot with the Carolina Panthers TopCats. She didn't make the team the first time she tried out, in 2015. Six years later, in 2021, she did. She went on to captain the TopCats and was selected as a Pro Bowl cheerleader in 2025.

"There are some moments in life that you dream about, some that you pray for, and some that you never could have imagined were waiting for you," Hopson wrote, announcing the win.

Six years between the first "no" and making the squad. And now? A national crown on top of it.

That's the kind of full-circle story that reminds you why we do this. ✊🏾

➡️ Read Full Story

September did not come to play. Culture wins, record enrollment, global opportunity, and real investment. Let's get into it. 👇🏾

🎬 "A Different World" Sequel Just Landed on Netflix

The Hillman College sequel dropped Thursday, following Whitley and Dwayne's daughter through her freshman year. The original is credited with tripling HBCU enrollment back in the late '80s.

➡️ Read more

📈 Four NC HBCUs Just Broke Enrollment Records

NC Central crossed 10,000 students for the first time. NC A&T posted its biggest first-year class ever. Winston-Salem State and Fayetteville State also set records.

➡️ Read more

🌍 Qatar Foundation Teams Up with 3 HBCUs

New agreements with Hampton, Xavier, and Prairie View A&M open study-abroad exchange with Qatar-based students, backed by the Qatari Embassy. Three HBCUs, one global push.

➡️ Read more

🏗️ HBCUs Are Investing Big in New Housing

Xavier: $80 million for 850+ new beds. Spelman and Morehouse: a joint $144 million project for 700+ beds. NC A&T opened its 16th dorm, and Southern broke ground on 800 more.

➡️ Read more

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📸 Straight from the Yard

Each month we're pulling one of our favorite HBCU moments off Instagram to keep the culture in your inbox. Don't just peek — make sure you're following so you never miss a vibe.

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September showed us both sides. 📈

Rankings up. Enrollment up. And there's still a gap inside all that good news that deserves more than a headline. We're going to keep sitting with it, not just celebrating around it.

Homecoming season is next. We'll be right here for that too.

Share this with someone who needs to be in the conversation. The more people talking about it, the more it actually moves.

Until next month, stay rooted, stay repping. ✊🏾

✌🏾 Until next time,

The HBCU Lifestyle Team

#HBCULifestyle #HBCURoundup #HBCUs #HBCUExcellence #HBCUCulture #BlackExcellence #HBCUPride #HBCURankings #HBCUEnrollment #WinstonSalemState #NCAT #HowardUniversity

P.S. — Homecoming season is closer than you think. 🎉 The 2026 HBCU Homecoming Schedule keeps growing (60+ schools and counting), and our Scholarship Directory just keeps climbing too. Real ones plan ahead. Bookmark both before the season sneaks up on you.

👉🏾 Explore the Homecoming Schedule | HBCU Scholarship Directory