Traditionally Black Faculties and Universities (HBCUs) assist put together their college students to excel in each career, they usually foster transformative actions for better justice and equality in our democracy. Throughout Nationwide Traditionally Black Faculties and Universities Week, we rejoice HBCUs for his or her longstanding legacy of molding trailblazers, visionaries, and public servants; for enabling college students to make immense contributions to this nation as Black professionals and tradespeople; and for bringing us nearer to the promise of an America for all People.
HBCUs have produced 40 p.c of all Black engineers and 50 p.c of all Black attorneys in America. Seventy p.c of Black docs in our nation attended an HBCU, and 80 p.c of Black judges are alumni of those colleges. From the Fisk Jubilee Singers who carried out for Queen Victoria to the feminine mathematicians who provided important intelligence to NASA’s first human area flights, to the sensible authorized students who helped dismantle structural segregation, and so lots of the giants of the Civil Rights motion who devoted their lives to lifting up the rights and dignity of all People, HBCUs have empowered graduates to kind America’s cultural identification, write our nationwide story, and safeguard this nation’s most elementary values. Our historic Vice President Kamala Harris is a HBCU graduate, in addition to Michael Regan, Administrator of the Environmental Safety Company.
My Administration helps HBCUs climate the pandemic and make tuition extra reasonably priced for his or her college students to proceed this legacy of excellence and inclusion. Since taking workplace, we now have invested a historic $5.8 billion to help staffing, instructing, and campus operations at these establishments. This contains offering HBCU college students with emergency monetary support through the pandemic and forgiving over $1.6 billion in debt held by practically half of all HBCUs to assist them finance infrastructure enchancment tasks. This summer season, I introduced debt reduction of as much as $20,000 for low- and middle-income debtors with Federal scholar loans, easing the burden of scholar mortgage debt for thus many HBCU college students and alumni. College students even have extra monetary assets as a result of my Administration elevated the utmost Pell Grant by $400 to $6,895 –- the most important enhance in over a decade — serving to 75 p.c of scholars enrolled in HBCUs pay for his or her training. Moreover, I reestablished the President’s Board of Advisors on HBCUs to bridge relationships between these colleges and the personal sector, and we launched a White Home initiative to assist HBCUs safe extra Federal funding. Additional, I’m proposing a historic funding to create and broaden HBCU applications in fields like cybersecurity, engineering, and well being care.
That is solely the beginning of my Administration’s marketing campaign to empower HBCUs and broaden their capability to make even better contributions to our society. This week and each week, we rejoice HBCUs for serving to to make this nation stronger and extra inclusive, and we proceed to champion and reinforce the continued achievements of those establishments — as a result of we all know that once they succeed, America succeeds.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR., President of the US of America, by advantage of the authority vested in me by the Structure and the legal guidelines of the US, do hereby proclaim September 18 via September 24, 2022, as Nationwide Traditionally Black Faculties and Universities Week. I name upon educators, public officers, skilled organizations, companies, and all People to look at this week with acceptable applications, ceremonies, and actions that acknowledge the numerous contributions these establishments and their alumni have made to our nation.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I’ve hereunto set my hand this
sixteenth day of September, within the 12 months of our Lord two thousand twenty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the 2 hundred and forty-seventh.
JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.
