Booker Intros Bipartisan HBCU Funding Bill

As part of a bipartisan, bicameral effort to help improve the financial health of HBCUs, Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ), David Perdue (R-GA), and Tim Kaine (D-VA) late last week introduced the HBCU Capital Financing Improvement Act. The bill is the Senate companion to a bill introduced in the House by Congresswoman Alma Adams (D-NC) in February 2017. The legislation would make changes to the HBCU Capital Financing Program, which provides HBCUs with access to capital financing or refinancing for the repair, renovation, and construction of campus infrastructure. The changes in the HBCU Capital Financing Improvement Act would allow more institutions to have access to the program, helping to offset inequities faced by HBCUs in the private bond market. “HBCU’s are a vital part of not just our nation’s higher education system, but of the American Dream. For my father, born poor in the segregated South, attending North Carolina Central University, an HBCU, proved to be a bridge for him and my family to move from poverty to the Middle Class in a single generation. Students attending HBCU’s today deserve the same opportunities,” said Booker. Read more here.