The 2008 Black Enterprise
Top 50 Colleges for African Americans 


1. Spelman College
2. Howard University
3. Morehouse College
4. Hampton University
5. Georgetown University
6. Stanford University
7. Swarthmore College
8. Fisk University
9. Amherst University
10. Harvard University
11. Columbia University
12. Wake Forest University
13. Clark Atlanta University
14. Wesleyan University
15. Yale University
16. Tuskegee University
17. Xavier University
18. Florida A&M University
19. University of Pennsylvania
20. Brown University
21. North Carolina A&T State University
22. Pomona College
23. Princeton University
24. Williams College
25. Cornell University
Rank School
26. North Carolina Central University
27. Johns Hopkins University
28. Oberlin College
29. Emory University
30. Dillard University
31. Duke University
32. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
33. University of California-Berkeley
34. Tennessee State University
35. Northwestern University
36. Jackson State University
37. Smith College
38. Vanderbilt University
39. University of Virginia
40. Grambling State University
41. Wellesley College
42. Morgan State University
43. Barnard College
44. Haverford College
45. Davidson College
46. New York University
47. University of Southern California
48. University of Maryland - College Park
49. South Carolina State University
50. Carleton College
*To develop the 2008 BLACK ENTERPRISE Top 50 Colleges for African Americans list, we surveyed more than 700 African American higher education professionals, including presidents, chancellors, and student affairs directors. Their assessments of the social and academic environments for African American students at the nation’s colleges and universities were invaluable in compiling the list. A total of 1,400 colleges met our initial criteria for consideration based on their status as accredited four-year institutions with an African American student enrollment of at least 3%. In addition, schools were required to have enrollment data submitted with the U.S. Department of Education. Each school’s academic and social environments were rated on a five-point scale from 1 (strongly do not recommend) to 5 (strongly recommend). The results of this survey were then used to calculate and assign average scores for academic and social environments for each school.

Those averages were given the heaviest weight in calculating the total score. The following variables were also used:
 
  • Number of black undergraduate students as a percentage of total undergraduates. (Credit for this variable was capped at 50% for HBCUs.)
     
  • Black student graduation rate