HBCUs, advocates looking for help from Trump on funding


              President Donald Trump meets with leaders of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday, Feb. 27, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
President Donald Trump meets with leaders of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Monday, Feb. 27, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

WASHINGTON (AP) - The nation's historically black colleges and universities are pushing for President Donald Trump to set aside more federal contracts and grants for their schools, and take a greater hand in their welfare by moving responsibility for a key program for those schools to the White House.

The presidents of the nation's 100-plus HBCUs, pressing their case for greater attention from the new Republican-controlled government, met with Trump late Monday afternoon at the White House. On Tuesday, they planned to meet with GOP lawmakers.

The college presidents' plan is to support a migration of the White House Initiative on HBCUs from the Education Department to the White House.

There were more than 231,000 students enrolled at black colleges and universities in 2014, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Almost 80 percent were black.

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