Tennessee accused by Biden administration of underfunding TSU by $2.1 billion
Tennessee and 15 other states were accused today by the Biden administration of underfunding their historically Black land-grant universities by billions of dollars over the last 30 years.
A letter from Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona and Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack to Gov. Bill Lee said Tennessee has underfunded Tennessee State University by $2.1 billion dollars. That figure was the highest among all states that received letters. Officials found Ohio and Delaware have met their legal obligation to their HBCU land-grand universities.
"Look at the decades of underfunding, not just in the capacity grants but also in the basic state appropriations, and think about how much effort it took for these schools to produce what they did," said Rep. Harold Love Jr, D-Nashville.
Land-grant universities were created by the Morrill Act of 1862. The federal government gave states land, which they could sell to fund a university that emphasized agriculture and "mechanical arts." Many of these schools, like the University of Tennessee, became the states' flagship public universities. They also did not initially admit Black students.
In 1890, a second Morrill Act required states to either end racial discrimination at their land-grant colleges or create separate schools for Black students. Across the country, 18 states chose to found Black instituations. Tennessee State was created by the second Morrill Act.
If states decided to open separate colleges for Black students, the 1890 Morrill Act required them to give equal funding to their white and Black land-grant schools.
Tennessee, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, underfunded TSU by $2,147,784,704 during the last 30 years.
In 2021, Tennessee's Office of Legislative Budget Analysis calculated that over the last 60 years the state underfunded TSU by $151 million to $544 million, a figure far below what the U.S. government found.
In response, Tennessee approved $250 million in one-time funds for TSU to use for infrastructure.
"There's no discrepancies in the numbers. These are different buckets," said Love, who led the 2021 effort to document the state's underfunding of TSU.
Love noted that the NCES had the staff and the data to more accurately document the extent of state underfunding of land-grant HBCUs.
The letter to Gov. Lee urged Tennessee to provide a "substantial state allocation" to TSU and make a two-to-one match of future federal funds the school receives.
"As Governor Lee has said, Tennessee State University is a remarkable institution that is vital to our state’s long-term success, and he has proposed significant funding for TSU every year, including an historic $250 million investment last year for strategic initiatives at TSU," said a spokeswoman for the governor.
Todd A. Price is a regional reporter for the USA Today Network.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Tennessee underfunded TSU by $2.1 billion, Biden administration finds
