Despite Changes over Years, HBCU Advocacy Remains the Priority - Higher Education

Despite Changes over Years, HBCU Advocacy Remains the Priority - Higher Education: Public funding is the life blood of higher education, specifically from financial aid, grants and contracts. Advocacy often determines not only how much public funding an institution will receive, but whether its concerns and those of its students will be taken into account as federal and state policies, programs and contracts are being developed.

In the 1980s, advocating on behalf of historically Black colleges was the main province of one organization: the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO). The organization focused on meeting with and educating policymakers, hosting networking and skill-building events for institutional leaders and pushing for policies and programs that benefited their member institutions. Occasionally, NAFEO mobilized alliances to advance a piece of legislation or to protest an injustice.