The 50 Best Colleges for African Americans—in One Handy Chart
By: Kim Clark
Originally Published: Apr 12, 2016 Last Updated: Apr 02, 2024 7 min read
No. 6 on our list, Spelman College has a long tradition of educating women in the sciences.
Jason Jones Photography
No single college is best for everyone. So in addition to our annual list of more than 700 Best Colleges for Your Money, we also publish lists tailored to different kinds of students. Our Find Your Fit tool takes it a step further and lets you create a customized list of schools based on the factors that are most important to you.
Recently Money collaborated with Essence magazine, another Time Inc. title, analyzing more than 1,500 four-year colleges to single out the ones that offer the best value for African-American students. We focused on these factors:
Graduation rates. A school’s graduation rate is one of the best measures of how well it’s serving students. That is especially true for African-American students, whose average graduation rate of 40.8% within six years lags that of other racial groups. For our analysis, we compared colleges’ graduation rates specifically for black students. A few colleges with comparatively low graduation rates made our list because they were highly affordable and scored well on other indicators.
Affordability. To evaluate costs, we analyzed student and parent borrowing, net prices charged to low-income students, and the average net price of a degree of each school, after subtracting its financial aid. (The net price you’ll see below is our estimate of the average net price charged in-state students by the school, which is the full sticker price minus only institutional aid and adjusted for inflation and the average time it takes students to graduate, which is typically more than four years. Your net price will be lower if you receive a federal aid such as Pell grants, or state aid such as Hope scholarships, or manage to graduate in just four years.)
Earnings potential. Money used a recent analysis by the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce to identify colleges that produce relatively high earners, given the background of their student body.
Representation. Campus diversity is also important. For a school to make our list, African Americans had to represent at least 5% of students. “You don’t want to be the lone black student in the lecture hall,” says Tyrone Howard, associate dean for equity, diversity, and inclusion at UCLA.
Here are the 50 schools that earned the highest scores. (The ones with links also appear in Money’s Best Colleges for Your Money rankings, where you can find additional data about them.)
| Rank/College | % African- American Students | Graduation Rate for African Americans | Net Price of a Degree | Early Career Salary | Student Debt Load |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Princeton University Princeton, N.J. | 6% | 93% | $162,00 | $60,500 | $6,810 |
| 2. Harvard University Cambridge, Mass. | 5% | 96% | $176,500 | $60,000 | $6,000 |
| 3. Duke University Durham, N.C. | 7% | 92% | $213,000 | $59,200 | $6,500 |
| 4. Cornell University Ithaca, N.Y. | 5% | 88% | $216,200 | $58,200 | $12,000 |
| 5. Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University Tallahassee, Fla. | 87% | 39% | $94,300 | $45,900 | $27,275 |
| 6. Spelman College Atlanta | 87% | 75% | $172,800 | $41,800 | $27,000 |
| 7. University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia | 6% | 94% | $207,000 | $59,200 | $21,500 |
| 8. Yale University New Haven, Conn. | 5% | 92% | $196,500 | $54,500 | $12,000 |
| 9. North Carolina A&T State University Greensboro, N.C. | 80% | 49% | $77,800 | $50,200 | $23,006 |
| 10. University of Maryland-College Park College Park, Md. | 11% | 77% | $96,300 | $52,700 | $19,500 |
| 11. Columbia University in the City of New York New York, N.Y. | 5% | 90% | $214,600 | $59,500 | $19,435 |
| 12. Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus Atlanta | 6% | 77% | $115,300 | $62,000 | $22,750 |
| 13. Georgetown University Washington, D.C. | 6% | 91% | $223,400 | $52,100 | $17,500 |
| 14. University of Florida Gainesville, Fla. | 6% | 79% | $90,700 | $48,900 | $15,133 |
| 15. Hampton University Hampton, Va. | 89% | 67% | $145,500 | $42,600 | $27,474 |
| 16. Bowie State University Bowie, Md. | 83% | 33% | $102,000 | $42,700 | $23,320 |
| 17. Wellesley College Wellesley, Mass. | 6% | 95% | $178,400 | $48,300 | $8,225 |
| 18. Berea College Berea, Ky. | 15% | 62% | $49,600 | $31,900 | $5,750 |
| 19. Amherst College Amherst, Mass. | 12% | 88% | $173,500 | $55,700 | $11,186 |
| 20. Virginia State University Petersburg, Va. | 84% | 43% | $102,300 | $38,800 | $28,451 |
| 21. Xavier University of Louisiana New Orleans | 70% | 43% | $111,800 | $37,400 | $27,000 |
| 22. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, N.C. | 8% | 84% | $92,100 | $45,300 | $15,906 |
| 23. Rice University Houston | 5% | 90% | $172,700 | $61,200 | $8,413 |
| 24. Vanderbilt University Nashville, Tenn. | 7% | 89% | $170,200 | $56,900 | $13,750 |
| 25. Brown University Providence, R.I. | 6% | 99% | $207,100 | $54,500 | $16,000 |
| 26. University of Richmond Richmond, Va. | 8% | 95% | $187,600 | $47,600 | $19,500 |
| 27. Dartmouth College Hanover, N.H. | 5% | 86% | $207,700 | $56,900 | $11,625 |
| 28. Howard University Washington, D.C. | 86% | 60% | $141,500 | $47,500 | $27,000 |
| 29. University of Virginia-Main Campus Charlottesville, Va. | 6% | 86% | $101,900 | $53,400 | $19,500 |
| 30. Davidson College Davidson, N.C. | 6% | 97% | $181,100 | $48,000 | $16,663 |
| 31. College of William and Mary Williamsburg, Va. | 7% | 86% | $122,300 | $45,900 | $20,786 |
| 32. Alcorn State University Alcorn State, Miss. | 93% | 40% | $95,600 | $40,800 | $27,941 |
| 33. Williams College Williamstown, Mass. | 7% | 83% | $200,600 | $50,900 | $12,005 |
| 34. Trinity Washington University Washington, D.C. | 67% | 44% | $123,200 | NA | $30,375 |
| 35. Jackson State University Jackson, Miss. | 89% | 43% | $84,700 | $38,400 | $31,000 |
| 36. Johns Hopkins University Baltimore | 7% | 86% | $209,300 | $57,000 | $18,500 |
| 37. Elizabeth City State University Elizabeth City, N.C. | 73% | 39% | $62,300 | $34,400 | $24,886 |
| 38. Prairie View A&M University Prairie View, Tex. | 84% | 37% | $91,700 | $56,000 | $29,052 |
| 39. Pomona College Claremont, Calif. | 7% | 92% | $183,200 | $48,900 | $8,600 |
| 40. Northwestern University Evanston, Ill. | 5% | 93% | $217,200 | $54,100 | $19,200 |
| 41. SUNY at Binghamton Vestal, N.Y. | 5% | 80% | $104,000 | $49,000 | $20,500 |
| 42. Emory University Atlanta | 10% | 92% | $210,400 | $50,400 | $19,500 |
| 43. North Carolina Central University Durham, N.C. | 76% | 48% | $84,900 | $35,200 | $30,203 |
| 44. Tennessee State University Nasheville, Tenn. | 64% | 42% | $90,300 | $45,100 | $28,500 |
| 45. Towson University Towson, Md. | 16% | 67% | $104,900 | $43,500 | $19,000 |
| 46. Stony Brook University Stony Brook, N.Y. | 6% | 75% | $96,800 | $48,800 | $20,173 |
| 47. Barnard College New York, N.Y. | 7% | 91% | $209,600 | $50,400 | $19,500 |
| 48. Winston-Salem State University Winston-Salem, N.C. | 69% | 46% | $80,100 | $43,900 | $20,173 |
| 49. Talladega College Talladega, Ala. | 84% | 50% | $89,400 | NA | $32,000 |
| 50. Rutgers University-Newark Newark, N.J. | 16% |
