Seizing the moment to revive an historically Black college

Ruth Simmons, one of higher ed’s most prominent Black leaders in the United States, is using her social capital to boost the fortunes of an historically Black college in Texas.

The bills started vanishing, as if a hacker had penetrated a computer in the college’s financial aid office. A $10 lab fee, gone. A $105 student health levy, wiped away. A bill for $1,500 in tuition, forget about it. Renae Lawrence checked her phone and was astonished. The 22-year-old early education student had been thousands in arrears. Now, the balance had dropped to negative $5.97. Her college owed her money. Lawrence, whose father drove a taxi in Jamaica, started to cry with relief. “I don’t know what I would have done,” she says. “It gave me another chance.” Lawrence’s historically Black college, Prairie View A&M in Texas, had suddenly come into the kind of money once reserved for Harvard and the other richest schools. Over a month starting in November, students behind on their bills — one out of 10 undergraduates — got this year-end lifeline from economic turmoil in the pandemic. As much as $2,000 apiece, it was the first installment of what will ultimately be $10 million worth of “Panther Success Grants,” named after their school mascot.