r/nextfuckinglevel 2d ago

Billionaire speaker Robert F. Smith tells 400 graduates he's paying off all their student loans ($40 million in total)

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u/EdwardBigby 2d ago

I hope people don't take this the wrong way but as a non American I'm slightly confused why there's a college where everybody seems to be black (also an Asian lady sitting behind the speaker)

I assume it's in a mostly black area but is it a case of no white people applying for this college or the college not accepting any white people? Or maybe I'm just missing the white people

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u/Legal_Guava3631 2d ago

HBCUs were founded for the black students that wanted to go to college but PWIs said fuck no, yall not coming in here. Anyone can apply, but it’s not really common for a white person to be seen on campus as a student.

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u/EdwardBigby 2d ago

Very interesting. I've never heard of those. Definitely makes sense from a historical point of view but the concept of them existing in a modern day context still seems bizarre to me.

What do most Americans think of them?

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u/RealPrinceJay 21h ago

Well they were never just going to disappear, but white people still don’t really apply that often even though they are welcome to. About 25% of all HBCU students are not black iirc, so it’s a bit more diverse than some people realize

It’s important to remember that HBCU stands for historically black. It’s not anymore, that’s just what it was and the history they carry

Personally, I don’t see how anyone could see anything that bizarre about it, especially considering how many problems still exist in our society