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HBCUs Must Treat Land Like Power

Today, those same institutions are under pressure from every direction. Public funding remains uncertain. Enrollment costs are rising. Land values around many campuses are climbing faster than HBCUs can capitalize on them. In cities across the country, the neighborhoods HBCUs helped stabilize and shape are now targets of speculative development. That presents both financial and cultural uncertainty. Without intention, we risk watching history repeat itself as Black institutions are surrounded, displaced, or disconnected from the communities they were built to serve.

Derek Fleming

This op-ed was originally published by Black Enterprise and authored by Senior Advisor Derek Fleming.

Land values around many campuses are climbing faster than HBCUs can capitalize on them.

My first visit to a Historically Black College or University was to Howard University during its famous homecoming celebrations. I was visiting as a student from UC Berkeley, newly initiated into my fraternity, and I was immediately embraced by my brothers at Howard.

What stayed with me wasn’t just the warmth of that welcome. It was the feeling of intellectual power. The ambition, pride, and collective confidence on the yard were undeniable. At 20 years old, I realized HBCUs offered much more than education; they were places where culture became capital. That understanding has only deepened with time.

Today, those same institutions are under pressure from every direction. Public funding remains uncertain. Enrollment costs are rising. Land values around many campuses are climbing faster than HBCUs can capitalize on them. In cities across the country, the neighborhoods HBCUs helped stabilize and shape are now targets of speculative development. That presents both financial and cultural uncertainty. Without intention, we risk watching history repeat itself as Black institutions are surrounded, displaced, or disconnected from the communities they were built to serve.

I have seen that risk firsthand. I’ve worked on real estate planning with Clark Atlanta University, which has seen a wave of corporate and large-scale development interest moving into the neighborhood around its campus. From Walmart’s reinvestment in nearby Vine City to destination-scale projects like Centennial Yards, capital is now flowing into places that were disinvested in because they were predominantly Black. That shift raises the stakes for whether the neighborhoods Clark Atlanta has historically buffered and protected will remain intact, recognizable, and rooted in the community that sustained them, or transform in ways that sever growth from cultural continuity and Black ownership.HBCUs have always been more than centers of education. They are cultural anchors, land stewards, and economic engines for Black communities. Long before “cultural districts” became a planning concept, HBCUs were already playing that role, creating ecosystems of housing, business, art, music, and civic leadership in the cities where they grew.

Real estate strategy is how institutions safeguard their role as places where culture becomes capital. This is the difference between being a presence in a neighborhood and being the power that shapes it.

We are already seeing what happens when that power is exercised under crisis instead of strategy. At Saint Augustine’s University, one of the nation’s oldest HBCUs, financial distress and accreditation pressures have pushed the institution into conversations about leasing large portions of its campus as a lifeline. The situation is painful, but instructive. It shows how, without long-term stewardship in place, land becomes a last resort rather than a strategic asset.

When HBCUs sell property to meet short-term needs, they risk surrendering long-term control on holdings that shape the cultural makeup of the surrounding area. However, when they lease land, form joint ventures, or establish cultural trusts, they preserve ownership while unlocking capital. This stewardship allows schools to protect the cultural capital they’ve built over time, ensuring these community pillars are aligned with institutional goals.

We can see what institutional land stewardship looks like at predominantly white institutions, such as Columbia, NYU, and Vanderbilt. These schools do not treat real estate as a facilities function. They are treated as strategic assets. Their campuses operate as living portfolios, where development decisions reinforce institutional power as much as educational mission.

HBCUs were founded through land in much the same way. Many of the most well-known HBCUs were originally established as land-grant institutions. The value and control of these land holdings have been critical to the stability and growth of those institutions throughout their history. We must continue to build on this legacy.

One practical way forward is to resource HBCUs to take the first and most critical step in the development process: understanding the true potential of their land. Before any partnership can form, universities need rigorous feasibility and highest-and-best-use studies that clarify what their land can support, how it can advance institutional mission, and what forms of development would protect long-term community and cultural interests. These studies allow HBCUs to come to the table as informed principals rather than reactive landholders.

This is where philanthropy can play a catalytic role. If foundations and mission-driven institutions underwrote these feasibility studies through targeted grants, they could unlock a national pipeline of HBCU-led development. A relatively modest investment in planning would reduce risk for future projects, attracting aligned development partners and positioning universities to negotiate from a stronger position.

HBCUs are among the last major Black-controlled landowners in many American cities. When developed intentionally, campus real estate can strengthen financial sustainability, protect surrounding Black communities from displacement, and create pathways for Black ownership, entrepreneurship, and wealth creation. When it is not, it risks becoming another extraction point in a long history of inequitable development.

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