House Bill 3416 Proposes Allocation Of Gambling Proceeds In Missouri To Support State’s HBCUs – AfroTech
A bill has been proposed to find new ways to support Missouri’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).
According to the News Tribune, the Missouri House Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee held a discussion on House Bill 3416 in early April. The legislation proposes funding for Lincoln University and Harris-Stowe State University and would launch the “Strengthening HBCUs Fund,” which would allocate 1% — about $3.3 million — from Missouri’s excursion gambling proceeds and an additional 1% from the Classroom Trust Fund, as well as gifts and donations, to support HBCUs.
Democratic Rep. LaKeySha Bosley, who represents Missouri House District 79 in St. Louis, said during the hearing that the bill will allow these universities to prioritize infrastructure.
“This is a fair, straightforward and necessary piece of legislation that seeks to correct longstanding inequities while investing in the future of higher education in Missouri,” she said, according to the News Tribune.
Lincoln University President John Moseley said the funding would be critical for the university, which has led Missouri in enrollment growth for the past two years.
“There’s a great likelihood that we will max out our on-campus housing capacity in the fall of ’26,” Moseley said, according to the outlet. “And so being able to identify where you can potentially pull funds over the next few years to pay for a project that would allow you to provide educational opportunities to a greater number of students would be very important.”
HBCUs have historically been underfunded. Research from The Hunt Institute shows that between 1987 and 2020, Historically Black Colleges and Universities were underfunded by $12.8 billion compared to predominantly white institutions, despite generating $16.5 billion in annual economic impact nationwide, according to UNCF.
As previously reported by AFROTECH™, additional efforts have been made to support HBCUs. This year, Senators Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Katie Britt (R-AL) introduced the HBCU Research Capacity Act in the presence of more than 30 HBCU presidents, which would create a website sharing information about funding opportunities to support HBCU-eligible STEM research and development to “streamline federal funding opportunities for HBCUs,” according to a press release.
