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A goal that is in the mind of many in keeping with Obama’s vision, our country must have the most number of graduates by the year 2020. According to the administration officials, every higher education sector including the Historically Black Universities and Colleges must spruce up their system and strive towards achieving this goal.

A lot of effort is on from the administration to work towards this by leveraging philanthropies, private sector and alumni support and by enhancing federal funding said White House HBCU Initiative director John Silvanus Wilson.  He was speaking at Washington among a community leader’s gathering.

You can view the current number of college degrees on the US Education Department website through individual campus links. By clicking on the links from this site, users are directed to the campus website where they can find information on total degrees produced so far and the number of degrees to be achieved by the year 2020 in keeping with our President’s goal.

For example, at least 2,222 undergraduate degrees are generated every year by University of Maryland-Eastern Shore, Morgan State University, Coppin State College and Bowie State University, the four HBCUs in Maryland. In order to achieve the 2020 goal, these colleges together must add at least 300 degrees every year.

According to Wilson, this is a greatly challenging preposition and administrators have to work that much harder. In terms of the most education population, our country has fallen to the 16th place from 9th according to Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation’s recent report.

He congratulated colleges like Lincoln University, Spellman College in Atlanta and Philander Smith College in Little Rock for their upward graduation trends. He also said that the White House is friendlier with our HBCUs, as never before.

This is evident with the fact that our administration offers complete support for Pell Grant Programs to help deserving students pay their college fees, teacher preparation programs and federal funding for HBCUs. At least two-thirds of HBCU students are from the low-income category and they need continued investment from the federal aid program, said Wilson.

Three other areas in HBCU that will be receiving help from the administration include campus enrichment through addressing African-American male recruitment and retention, improving perception enhancement through messaging and working with philanthropic communities and federal agencies to ensure capital expansion.

Women form at least 70 percent of students at HBCUs. The 2011 HBCU conference was addressed by President Obama’s senior advisor Valerie Jarrett. She urged people to offer their support for our President’s proposed program, American Jobs Act. According to her, this program has the capacity to revitalize our community hit by the recession.

She urged the creation of new training programs for minorities, hiring teachers and funding school construction projects as a part of taking action to alleviate unemployment among the African-American community.

She said that the conference attendees must be a beacon of hope for America serving as a role model. Pain of recession has been felt by the HBCU acutely with rising costs, shrinking endowments and falling enrollment. All of us have to put our heads together to transform our society and HBCU has always played a major role in using fewer resources to attain greater outcomes, she said.