A THREAD: For the past few weeks HBCUs have been mentioned by folks with little to no understanding of them, as a proxy for the President's widespread support of African Americans. Let me share these footnotes. 1/
The President did sign the bill for FY20 which provided record HBCU funding. It was the result of bipartisan work in the Congress; the president simply signed it as part of the overall budget for the nation. 2/
uncf.org/news/significa…
uncf.org/news/significa…
The final product though differed from the President's initial budget, which ceased "providing any mandatory Title III funding, which represents an approximately $80 million fiscal cliff for HBCUs." 3/
tmcf.org/events-media/t…
tmcf.org/events-media/t…
That "cliff" is the permanent funding the President has recently celebrated. It is the FUTURE Act, written by @RepAdams and was the result of strong, BIPARTISAN support. 4/
uncf.org/news/a-once-in…
uncf.org/news/a-once-in…
When he says the heads of HBCUs kept asking for a long term deal, he has said 42 to 44. There are 101 HBCUs. My guess is he means the public HBCUs and predominantly black institutions that are members of the @tmcf_hbcu but I don't know if as a group they met every year.
Not sure where the no long term deal comes from. The "permanent" funding refers to 1 of over a dozen government funding programs for HBCUs. This particular program was started by George W. Bush in 2007. It was a 2 year, temporary program at $85M/yr 6/
nasfaa.org/news-item/2379…
nasfaa.org/news-item/2379…
President Obama let the program end (and got beat up bad!) So he came back and made it a 10 year, $85M/yr program for HBCUs (with additional MSI money). President Trump also let the program end before the FUTURE Act was created and signed. 7/
obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-offi…
obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-offi…
SUMMARY: Record funding during this administration due to bipartisan Congress & lots of advocacy, more than what the president initially requested. The permanent HBCU funding for 1 program, and funded for 10 years based on CBO policy. It's the same program that Obama had. 8/8
