How the state underfunded Tennessee State University by $2 billion

Tennessee State University was founded to keep Black students out of the University of Tennessee.

In 1890, states with land-grant schools, like the University of Tennessee, were given a choice. They could either admit Black students to these colleges, which had been funded initially with grants of land from the federal government. Or the states could receive federal funding to create separate schools for Black residents.

TSU at a crossroads: After an upheaval in leadership and scrutiny from the state, TSU is working to lay a foundation for its future. Read about how a new board and an interim president are making changes at the historically Black university .

In Tennessee and other Southern states, separate schools were created. When states took the money, which ensured their flagship schools remained segregated, they agreed to provide "just and equitable" funding to both institutions. Few states interpreted that phrase as a requirement to provide equal funding, and most historically Black land-grant universities have been forced to operate with far less state support than the predominantly white institutions.

Land-grant schools have always had a mission to research and improve agriculture. The federal government, today through the farm bill, provides grants for that research, but states must match those grants on a 1-to-1 basis. Historically Black land-grant schools regularly must request a waiver from the matching requirement so they can still receive the federal research grant.

Between 2018 and 2021 Tennessee State University received no matching funds from the state for research and extension services, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture records.

$2.1 billion: Tennessee State University has been underfunded. Here's what that means.

In 2021, Tennessee’s Office of Legislative Budget Analysis calculated that the state's failure to match federal research funds to TSU shortchanged the school by $151 million to $544 million since 1957. In response, the state allocated $250 million to TSU for infrastructure projects.

Last year, the Biden administration sent letters to 16 governors informing them how much their states had underfunded their historically Black land-grant universities over the last 30 years. The amount was calculated by comparing the per student spending by the states at both the historically Black and predominantly white land-grant schools. The federal government found that Tennessee underfunded TSU by $2.1 billion, the most of any state.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: How the state underfunded Tennessee State University by $2 billion