A group photo should not be this powerful. But there they are — young Black men and women, side by side, draped in HBCU hoodies and jackets, smiling wide in front of a brick wall like they own every inch of it. And honestly? They do.
That image captures something that numbers alone cannot fully explain, but the numbers sure do help tell the story.
HBCU pride is no longer a quiet thing
There was a time when wearing your HBCU on your chest was seen as a niche flex — a regional thing, a family tradition thing, a historically specific thing. That time is gone. Today, HBCU pride is a full cultural movement, worn literally and loudly by students who chose these institutions not as a consolation prize, but as a conscious, deliberate decision rooted in identity, community, and legacy.
The hoodie. The jacket. The school name plastered across the chest. These are not just campus merch — they are statements. They say— I know where I come from, I know what this institution has survived, and I am proud to carry that forward. That is the energy radiating from every smiling face in a photo like that, and it is the same energy driving one of the most remarkable stories in American higher education right now.
The enrollment surge powering HBCU pride
Between 2020 and 2023, HBCU enrollment rose by 7%, a sharp contrast to the overall decline seen across higher education. That number is not a blip — it is a signal.
North Carolina A&T State University surpassed 15,000 students, remaining the largest public HBCU in the nation. North Carolina Central University broke its own record, enrolling over 9,000 students for the first time in its 115-year history. Meanwhile, Coppin State University in Baltimore welcomed over 1,000 new undergraduate students, marking the largest incoming class in over a quarter-century, and Delaware State University has broken new student enrollment records in four of the last five years.
These are not coincidences. These are the results of generations of HBCU students repping their schools hard enough to make the next generation pay attention. Pride is recruitment. Pride is legacy in motion.
Why students are choosing HBCU culture
Ask any HBCU student why they chose their school and the answer almost never starts with rankings or salary outcomes. It starts with feeling. It starts with walking onto a campus where the professors look like you, where homecoming is a religious experience, where your culture is not a footnote in the curriculum but the entire foundation of it.
HBCUs make up only 3 percent of America’s colleges and universities, but they produce nearly 20 percent of all African American graduates and 25 percent of African American graduates in STEM fields.  That is an extraordinary return on pride. Students are not just choosing a school — they are choosing an outcome, a community, and a sense of belonging that many say they simply cannot find anywhere else.
Hampton University’s vibrant campus life is powered by over 100 student organizations and programs that help students find community, develop confidence, and shape their identity. That ecosystem — fraternities, sororities, leadership institutes, marching bands, campus traditions — is what fills those hoodies with meaning.
The hoodie as a symbol of HBCU identity
Fashion has always been a language, and HBCU students are fluent. The HBCU hoodie has evolved far beyond campus gear. It is worn at NFL games, on red carpets, in music videos, and on college visits by prospective students who have not even enrolled yet but already know where they belong. When a student zips up a jacket with their school name on it, they are not just getting dressed — they are declaring allegiance to something bigger than themselves.
That declaration matters even more now, in a cultural and political climate where the visibility of Black institutions is both celebrated and contested. HBCU pride is an act of affirmation. It says these schools exist, they thrive, and their students are here — smiling, unbothered, and unapologetically repping every stitch of their identity.
HBCU pride is just getting started
The young men and women in that photo are the face of a movement that has been building for decades and is now impossible to ignore. HBCUs are shaping futures, shifting narratives, and keeping culture thriving — and their students are wearing the proof every single day.
The brick wall behind them is not just a backdrop. It is a symbol of institutional endurance — of schools that were built during some of the hardest chapters of American history and are still standing, still growing, and still producing greatness. These students know that. And they wear it proudly.
That is what HBCU pride looks like. And it has never looked better.
