Black colleges matter: as many HBCUs struggle with shrinking enrollment, the new president at Bennett College says the institutions are more important than ever.

• Author: Williams, Allison
• Position: Look back

Year after year, many students board buses and planes bound for Bennett College sight unseen, the stories of a liberal arts school for black women handed down from grandmothers, aunts, mothers and sisters.

Tradition is the tie that binds at 107 historically black colleges and universities, of which North Carolina has 11, more than any other state. Ritual is part of the equation at Bennett's postcard-pretty campus, a short walk from downtown Greensboro. The entire student body of about 500 women gathers for twice-weekly seminars and smaller "sister chats." There's a dress code, an attendance policy and men aren't allowed in dorms at the university, which charges about $28,000 a year. And the traditions don't stop at graduation--hundreds of alumnae, who call themselves Bennett Belles, make the annual pilgrimage back each May when seniors, dressed in all-white gowns, cross through the same gates they entered as first-year students known as freshwomen.

But with declining enrollments at all but three of the N.C. schools, HBCUs face a worrisome future. Elizabeth City State University's student body has declined by 30% in the last decade, to about 1,900, and Moody's Investors Service cut its credit rating in November to Baal, one of its lowest investment-grade ratings. At Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, a former trustee is pushing for the resignation of President Ron Carter after the private school reported cumulative deficits of $17.5 million in 2013 and 2014.

Some of the same problems plaguing HBCUs crop up at Bennett, too. A 2004 cover story in Business North Carolina found Bennett on the other side of a crisis, just two years after the school was $4 million in debt. Twelve years later, President Rosalind Fuse-Hall has closed a $2.9 million budget deficit, one of her first tasks after arriving in 2013. Now, Fuse-Hall, who is 6 feet, 1 inch and displays infectious energy, is especially enthused about Bennett's plans for a new major in entrepreneurship and a partnership with Wells Fargo & Co. that will enable the school to train students for securities-industry jobs.

The good news is that an October poll by Gallup and Purdue University says HBCU graduates are landing higher-paying, more satisfying jobs than their black peers who attend predominantly white institutions. In turn, they give back to their alma maters. An average 38% of Bennett's alumnae gave money to the school from 2012 to 2014, the second highest rate of any HBCU...