Updated on August 10th, 2026.
The club of HBCUs with nine-figure endowments just got bigger.
Four public HBCUs crossed the $100 million endowment mark as of June 30, 2025: Winston-Salem State University (counting its foundation), Texas Southern University, Norfolk State University and Virginia State University. All four sat between $96 million and $98 million a year earlier, and all four cleared the line in the same 12-month stretch.
Alabama State University joined the confirmed list in August with the release of its audited financial statements for the fiscal year that ended in September 2025. The university’s combined endowment, counting both its own endowment pool and the funds held by its affiliated foundation and trust, stood at $155.2 million, up 14.8% from a year earlier.
Meharry Medical College’s latest federal tax filing also confirmed its place among the largest funds. The Nashville medical school’s endowment grew 7.8% to $216.8 million as of June 30, 2025, and the entire fund is permanently restricted by donors.
That brings the number of HBCUs with confirmed endowments of $100 million or more to 15, based on the figures reported so far. The real number is almost certainly higher. Several schools that were at or near nine figures a year earlier, including Prairie View A&M, Clark Atlanta, Tennessee State, Morgan State and Dillard, have not yet reported updated values.
Howard pulls further ahead
Howard University remains in a category of its own. Its endowment grew $87 million over the year, an 8.5% gain, to roughly $1.12 billion. Howard is still the only HBCU with an endowment above $1 billion, and its fund alone represents nearly one-fifth of all reported HBCU endowment wealth.
Spelman College held second place at $567 million, up 11.9%. Morehouse College climbed 15.4% to $304 million, moving past the $300 million mark for the first time in the figures we track.
Growth nearly across the board
Of the 18 schools with updated values so far, 16 grew, most by double digits. The typical gain among reporting schools was around 12%.
The fastest riser among the large endowments was North Carolina A&T, up 22.4% to $247 million. That growth arrives alongside the university’s push toward top-tier research status, putting NC A&T within about $24 million of Hampton University for the fourth spot on the list.
| School | 2023-24 (millions) | 2024-25 (millions) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Howard University | $1,032.5 | $1,119.9 | +8.5% |
| Spelman College | $506.7 | $567.0 | +11.9% |
| Morehouse College | $263.4 | $303.9 | +15.4% |
| Hampton University | $241.2 | $271.2 | +12.4% |
| NC A&T State University | $201.9 | $247.3 | +22.4% |
| Meharry Medical College | $201.0 | $216.8 | +7.8% |
| Tuskegee University | $164.2 | $177.2 | +7.9% |
| Xavier University of Louisiana* | $182.9 | $162.4 | -11.2% |
| Alabama State University | $135.2 | $155.2 | +14.8% |
| Morehouse School of Medicine | $141.5 | $143.3 | +1.3% |
| Florida A&M University | $124.1 | $135.7 | +9.3% |
| Winston-Salem State Univ. & Foundation | $96.6 | $114.5 | +18.5% |
| Texas Southern University | $97.4 | $111.2 | +14.2% |
| Norfolk State University | $96.4 | $109.5 | +13.6% |
| Virginia State University | $96.5 | $105.6 | +9.4% |
| University of the Virgin Islands | $61.7 | $60.9 | -1.4% |
| Fayetteville State University | $34.9 | $39.5 | +13.3% |
| American Baptist College | $1.2 | $2.8 | +127.6% |
Sources: NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments (2024-25); audited financial statements; NC A&T Board of Trustees endowment report (April 2026); IRS Form 990 filings; U.S. Department of Education finance survey data for 2023-24. *Xavier’s decline likely reflects a difference in how the two sources define the endowment, not investment losses. See the data notes below.
The gap below the top
The strong year at the top should not obscure how uneven HBCU endowment wealth remains. Across the 93 HBCUs with reported values for 2023-24, endowments totaled about $5.6 billion. The five largest funds held 41% of that total. The median HBCU endowment was $16.5 million, 33 schools held less than $10 million, and the bottom half of schools combined held about $309 million, less than a third of Howard’s fund alone.
Endowment income is not a cure-all, but the difference between a $10 million fund and a $250 million fund is the difference between a modest annual supplement and a permanent revenue stream that can underwrite scholarships, faculty positions and facilities year after year.
About the data, and its limits
No single source covers every HBCU endowment, so this analysis stitches together several. The most recent values come from the NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments, a voluntary annual survey of college endowments; from audited financial statements filed by private institutions; in NC A&T’s case, from an endowment performance report presented to its Board of Trustees; and, in Meharry Medical College’s case, from the school’s annual federal tax filing. Prior-year values for the full list of 93 schools come from the U.S. Department of Education’s annual finance survey, which every federally funded institution must complete.
These sources do not always define “endowment” the same way, so the figures should be read as close estimates rather than exact, apples-to-apples comparisons. Three examples from this year’s data illustrate the point.
First, Xavier University of Louisiana shows an apparent decline of about $20 million. We believe this reflects a difference in scope between what Xavier reported to the federal survey and what its audit counts as endowment, not actual investment losses, and we have chosen not to characterize it as a loss.
Second, Winston-Salem State’s figure in the endowment study combines the university and its affiliated foundation, while its federal filing counts only university-held funds (about $55 million). Its crossing of the $100 million mark is real within the combined series, but it is not directly comparable to schools reporting university-held funds alone.
Third, Alabama State’s figure combines the university’s own endowment pool (about $24.6 million) with roughly $130.6 million in endowments held by its affiliated foundation and trust, which close their books on different dates than the university. That combined approach is consistent with how the university’s endowment has been reported to the federal survey in prior years.
Finally, the 2024-25 picture is incomplete. Only 18 HBCUs have reported updated values so far, and they skew toward the largest funds. As more schools release audited statements over the coming months, we will update our HBCU endowments dashboard, and the $100 million club may well grow again.
