Attending a historically Black college or university (HBCU) as a young adult may be linked with better later-life cognitive outcomes for Black Americans, according to a recent study. The authors sampled 1,978 Black American adults who attended college between 1940 and 1980 (35% attended an HBCU), and who attended a high school in a state with an HBCU. The conclusion? There may be a correlation between collegiate environment and long-term wellness.During that time frame of attendance, two major policy implementations shaped schooling in the country: first, in 1952, Brown v Board of Education ruled that racial segregation in schools was unconstitutional; and second was the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which barred racial discrimination in school.Dr Marilyn Thomas, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, was interested in whether or not the cohort would show different outcomes between HBCU graduates and graduates of predominantly white institutions (PWIs). The study mined differences between Black students who attended college during a time when they were largely prevented from attending white colleges and Black students who attended college after segregation was outlawed.The study, published last month in Jama Network Open with co-authors from Rutgers University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Columbia University, Boston University and Harvard University, found that differences in when or how participants were exposed to “state-sanctioned racialized education policies” had an impact on later life.
