Biden Administration calls for Kemp to fix funding gap between UGA, Fort Valley State
Citing “unacceptable funding disparities” between Historically Black Colleges and Universities founded as land-grant institutions and their peer non-HBCU land-grant schools, officials in the Biden Administration last week called on states to begin remedying such imbalances.
In letters from the U.S. secretaries of education and agriculture to governors in 16 mostly southeastern states, funding disparities in those states were said to total a combined $12-plus billion between non-HBCU land-grant institutions and land-grant HBCUs.
The disparity between the two land-grant universities in Georgia — the University of Georgia and Fort Valley State University — from the past 30 years or so alone was calculated to be in excess of $600 million.
“These funds could have supported infrastructure and student services and would have better positioned the university to compete for research grants,” said the letter sent to Gov. Brian Kemp. “Fort Valley State University has been able to make remarkable strides and would be much stronger and better positioned to serve its students, your state, and the nation if made whole with respect to this funding gap.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper reported that Kemp’s press secretary, in a statement, said Kemp “has and will continue to support Georgia’s HBCU institutions.”
The newspaper said the press secretary referred comment on specifics of the letter to the University System of Georgia, which said that it was “working to collect data and facts and then will respond to the letter.”
The letter sent to Kemp from the Biden Administration went on to say that the “situation ... clearly predates all of us,” but that it was the Administration’s hope that “we can collaborate to avoid burdensome and costly litigation.”
Officials at Fort Valley State University declined comment.
U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, in a statement last week, said, “Unacceptable funding inequities have forced many of our nation’s distinguished Historically Black Colleges and Universities to operate with inadequate resources and delay critical investments in everything from campus infrastructure to research and development to student support services.”
The letter that Cardona co-wrote to Georgia’s governor went on to say that “given the large amount of state funding that is owed to Fort Valley State University, it would be ambitious to address the funding disparity over the course of several years in the state budget. ... We want to make abundantly clear that it is not necessary to reduce funding to other institutions, nor make a reduction in general fund allocations to Fort Valley State University in addressing these disparities.”