The federal government provides broad, though indirect, support for most of the institutions of higher education in the United States. The benefits these institutions receive from federal policies include their tax-exempt status, the eligibility of their students for the federal student financial aid programs, and their opportunity to compete for federal research funds. In addition, the federal government currently gives direct institutional support to three types of minority-serving institutions. Since 1867, federal support has been provided to what have come to be known as historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). More recently, tribally controlled colleges began receiving support in 1969 and Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) in 1992.
These three groups of institutions receive direct federal assistance to maintain the institutions, including their facilities, staff, and academic programs. These funds are in addition to the resources these institutions receive from the broad federal programs available to all institutions, such as student aid and research grants. The purpose of this chapter is to outline the historical origin and evolution of these special federal programs of direct institutional support to minorityserving institutions, to understand the policy purposes behind these programs, and to survey the current level of support received by minority-serving institutions from these programs.
Historically Black Colleges and Universities
At the end of the Civil War in 1865 there were approximately four million newly freed slaves and a half-million free blacks in the United States (President' s Board of Advisors on HBCUs, 1996). The postwar federal policy of