White State Senator in Washington Wants to Offer Need-Based Scholarship for Students Who Attend HBCUs

Ken Jacobsen, a Democratic state senator from Washington State, has authored legislation that will provide tuition scholarships for low-income students to attend historically black colleges and universities. The bill would provide need-based scholarships for up to 100 students of any race who were accepted at black colleges. The need-based grants would be comparable to the amount of money the students would expect to get from the state if they attended college in the state of Washington.

With blacks making up only 3 percent of the students at the main campus of the University of Washington, it may be extremely difficult to gain support from a majority of the state legislators for any effort to help black students go to college in other states.