Since 2009, the Obama White House has created a masterful surface impression of support for black colleges. First Lady Michelle Obama keynoted several HBCU commencements. Black colleges were the site of multiple community dialogues and forums engaging black communities about policy concerns. And HBCUs were critical battleground state rallying stops and fundraising sites in the weeks and months leading up to the election.

But when the glow of President Barack Obama’s second inauguration dims, the lobbying will begin for the president’s attention to control guns and climate control, and to reform immigration and our economic rules of engagement. Education, in spots and flashes, will appear on the nation’s radar for discussion whenever the next startling report on secondary achievement, degree completion or affordability is published.

And because higher education occupies little space within the nation’s domestic agenda, there’s little room for optimism about increased federal support to or discussion on black college sustainability and growth over the next four years.

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