We just re-watched an old favorite film: Drumline (2002), starring Nick Cannon as Devon Miles. In the movie, Devon wins a band scholarship to a fictional HBCU – Atlanta A&T University. Though his freshman year is bumpy, Devon notes that he wouldn’t even be attending college if he hadn’t been recruited by the band director and offered a full financial aid package.
At College Abacus, we wanted to know how much financial aid Devon – or students in similar circumstances – might get at real HBCUs. (Though limited information is available in the film, we assumed that Devon’s mother earned $30,000-$39,999 post-tax annually.) We looked at 7 of the top 25 HBCUs, as ranked by US News & World Report.
As you can see below, Devon’s results illustrate the critical importance of using tools like College Abacus before you decide where to apply to college. Though all of these schools have strong reputations and rankings, they range in cost from $6,772 (Tougaloo) to $30,334 (Hampton). Even colleges with the same “sticker prices” – like Tougaloo and Elizabeth City State – can have very different “net prices,” due to variation in their financial aid packages.
You can start your search for affordable HBCUs at CollegeAbacus.com.
Photo credit: Photo credit: themoviedb.org (TMDb)
I love this concept of taking a “fictional character” and showing how a student could outline his future for college spending! Great ideas. 🙂
We should learn the lesson from the drumline that sometime your vision and idea can change the whole thing.