MUSKEGON, Mich. — Tarra Carson is on a mission. She’s an alum of a Historically Black College and University. Her mother went to an HBCU, Alcorn State. Her daughter is studying at an HBCU now, Jackson State. She wants more students from the Muskegon area to follow in her family’s footsteps. So, she founded the HBCU Club of Muskegon.
“It has been an awesome experience,” Carson said during an interview with FOX 17 in early February. “We just celebrated our fourth year in the Muskegon communities, West Michigan area. We service students throughout the West Michigan area.”
The club helps students from seventh grade through 12th become interested in HBCUs. They’ve taken them to local HBCU college fairs and had different speakers talk to the group about their individual collegiate experiences.
“They’re looking to be in a welcoming environment where they can see students who look like them, profs who look like them.”
— Lauren Edwards (@LaurenEdwardsTV) February 28, 2023
Enrollment at HBCUs ⬆️ than natl average. Local HBCU club tells @FOX17 how theyre helping
(🎥: when @ncatsuaggies @B_GMM performed at Lions-PHI in Sept) pic.twitter.com/0NHTUig6II
And last year they went on their first ever college tour.
“We had the opportunity to take 21 students from the Muskegon, Grand Rapids area on this college tour,” Carson said. “We was on the tour for six days. We had the opportunity to visit Dr. Martin Luther King historical site in Memphis. We went to the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.”
They visited several universities and colleges: Tennessee State in Tennessee; Morris Brown, Spelman, Clark Atlanta, and Morehouse in Atlanta; and her alma mater Grambling State in Louisiana.
As soon as Jai Oliver stepped onto Grambling’s campus, she knew that’s where she wanted to go to school in the fall of 2023. She said the campus was beautiful and the people were welcoming.
“It was an eyeopener because if there weren’t a program like this and there wasn’t an HBCU school tour and I didn’t go on it, I wouldn’t have decided to go to Grambling,” said Oliver, who’s a senior at Muskegon High School. “I probably would’ve went to a school like the University of Michigan. Not to say that it’s a bad school, but I wouldn’t feel great you know about the choice.”
Oliver’s decision to go to an HBCU over other institutions follows a national trend. According to multiple sources, including National Student Clearinghouse, national colleges and universities lost 1.3 million students since the pandemic first broke out in March 2020. However, between 2018 and 2021, applications at HBCU’s rose 30 percent.
It’s what they’re seeing at Howard University, said counseling psychology professor Ivory Toldson.
“It’s true of a lot of HBCUs,” said Toldson, who’s also the NAACP national director of education. “I think it’s true of the sector as a whole. Now, there’s 100 HBCUs. So, it’s certainly not true of all 100, but when you look at the entire landscape of higher education, enrollment is down across the board. Some of that’s because of demographic changes in our country, where millennials, our largest generation, are getting older. And the generation coming behind them, [that are] college age, that’s not quite as big.”
Toldson was once the executive director of the White House initiative on HBCUs under President Barack Obama.
He told FOX 17 during a Zoom interview on Monday that more students are looking to go where they can get a great education at an affordable price.
He added that with all the racial tension over the last few years, there’s an “elevated consciousness” for Black students.
“It’s more Black students seeing the value of being in an environment that affirms who they are when so many things is happening in society that makes them not feel welcomed,” said Toldson. “So, they’re looking to be in a welcoming environment where they can see other students who look like them, professors who look like them, and be at a university that have a mission that advance education for people like them.”
Dedrick Fondren II said he knew enrollment would increase as soon as NFL great Deion Sanders became the head coach at Jackson State University in 2020.
It was around that time that he left his home in Muskegon and attended Mississippi Valley State.
“I wanted to get closer to my family roots for one. That was kind of the first thing that grabbed my attention’, Fondren II said. Then it was the diversity of the people that he liked. “Because you have the country [guys], you have the city guys, you have a lot of different variations of Black people.”
Fondren II said he’s currently taking the semester off. However, he recommends Carson’s club to everyone.
Carson's excited to see the first class in the group, from 2019, become HBCU grads in May. In the meantime, she’s preparing to take high school students on another tour in April. This time they’re heading east, with stops at Coppin State, Morgan State, and Howard.
“Many of our students have never been away from Muskegon, Michigan before. Many of our students are first-generation students, "Carson said. “Just to give them the opportunity that there is life outside the city of Muskegon, and just take what they have learned on the college tour, share it with family, share it with friends about the history and culture of Historically Black Colleges and Universities.”
