Institutional Funding and Managerial Differences in Racially Dual Systems of Higher Education

Since their founding in the United States under a racially dual system, public colleges and universities serving predominantly blacks’ higher education needs have experienced funding and financial circumstances that differ from higher education institutions serving predominantly white populations. Past funding disparities have thrust different managerial pressures on college and university decision-makers with regard to the internal allocation of institutional resources. These historically black colleges and universities continue to provide unique higher educational opportunities for blacks, but their survival has continued amidst ongoing questions of whether or not they have been placed on equal financial footing with their publicly supported and still predominantly white sister institutions. The present article presents analyses addressing the extent to which differences in external funding sources and internal allocations of resources arising from managerial decision-makers persist between these historically black and white institutions of higher education and considers potential future implications as changes in funding patterns sit on the near term horizon.