Historically Black Colleges & Medical Schools

There are a number of historically black colleges and universities (or HBCUs) spread across the American South and East Coast in 20 states, the nation's capital and the Virgin Islands. These include four-year public universities with advanced degrees in addition to bachelor’s programs, four-year private colleges and two-year public colleges at which students obtain associate’s and professional degrees. Some of those universities do cater to medical students.

Numbers

In total, there are more than 100 HBCUs in the United States. Of these, 40 are four-year public universities, 51 are four-year private colleges and 14 are private or public two-year schools.

Statistics

With its 15 HBCUs, Alabama has more schools of this kind than any other state. North Carolina has more four-year public universities than any of the other states with five. Some of the more notable colleges on the list are Louisiana’s four-year private school Xavier University, Virginia State University, University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, a division of Arkansas’ best known university, Georgia’s Morris Brown University and Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Medical Schools

There are three historically black medical schools in the United States: the Howard University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C.; Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia; and Nashville, Tennessee’s Meharry Medical College.

Howard University offers a doctor of medicine degree, two dual-degree programs combining a bachelor of science and a doctor of medicine or an M.D. and Ph.D., and six graduate programs in biomedical science, including anatomy, genetics & human genetics, microbiology, physiology & biophysics, biochemistry or pharmacology.

Morehouse School of Medicine has a master’s degree program in public health in addition to its doctor of medicine and four different paths in biomedical science: a biomedical sciences Ph.D., a master of science in clinical research, a master of science in biomedical research and a master of science in biomedical technology.

There are three schools at Meharry Medical College: the School of Graduate Studies & Research, the School of Medicine and the School of Dentistry. The oldest and largest of the three, the School of Medicine, offers an M.D. and preparation for the master of science in public health or a doctor of philosophy degree in biochemistry, microbiology, physiology or pharmacology.

Students obtain either a general practice residency degree or a degree in oral and maxillofacial surgery at the School of Dentistry. And at the School of Graduate Studies & Research, awarded are a master of science in public health, an M.D./Ph.D. dual degree with the school of medicine and Ph.D. degrees in biochemistry and cancer biology, pharmacology, microbiology and immunology or neurosciences.