The national average for alumni giving remains remarkably low, at about 9 to 10 percent for private colleges and 5 to 6 percent for public universities. The problem is even more distressing at historically Black colleges and universities, which, at one time, produced the lion’s share of Black college graduates in this country.
But despite the sharp economic decline, Bennett College, the small, Black women’s college headquartered in Greensboro, N.C., has consistently managed to keep its numbers up, garnering annual financial contributions from about 20 percent of its alumni, much higher than the HBCU national average of about 6 percent.
