We’ve all witnessed the emergence of alumni from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). HBCU students and recent graduates are everywhere, seizing their moment and breaking into the ever-changing job market across fashion, business and STEM. Cases in point: Beyoncé’s timeless Renaissance World Tour looks were curated by Hampton University alum and influential costume designer Shiona Turini. Morehouse College’s DeAndre Brown, better known as “The Corporate Baddie,” achieved viral success on social media as a trusted source of astute (and hilarious) career advice for navigating the workplace. And the Florida A&M University freshmen Kaeden Levarity, Logan Kendall, Jade White, Micah Lee, Jackson Norflis and Layla Brown won a total of $20,000 from Ford at a national STEM competition for their environmentally conscious robot. HBCU alums are constantly reminding the world that their institutions are not relics of the past but engines for the future.
But across the country, the earth beneath the feet of recent graduates feels more like quicksand than solid ground, with artificial intelligence shrinking the availability of entry-level jobs. The era of “Just apply—the worst they can say is no” is over. Now, the worst they can say is “We need three years of work experience” or “We don’t need you.” In this uncertainty, HBCUs continue to stand steady. As Jelani M. Favors, vice president of the Frederick D. Patterson Research Institute at UNCF (United Negro College Fund), writes in Shelter in a Time of Storm: How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership and Activism, “Black colleges were an essential, and noncollapsible, space that oriented and trained Black youths to serve as agents for justice.”
While Favors speaks to HBCUs’ legacy of cultivating activists and leaders, his words also acknowledge their infrastructure, which prepares students to innovate and to create pathways for social and economic mobility. According to the UNCF 2024 HBCU Economic Impact Report, HBCUs generate $16.5 billion annually and create more than 136,000 jobs in their communities. Though they enroll only 1.6 percent of U.S. college students, HBCUs produce 16 percent of Black bachelor degree holders—including 40 percent of Black engineers, 70 percent of Black doctors and dentists, and 80 percent of Black judges.
“We have to fight above our weight class,” says Tuskegee University President and CEO Mark Brown, Ed.D., who points to industry partnerships as “economic necessities” that build pipelines of talent ready to deliver results. Tuskegee’s new partnership with Johnson Energy Storage established the Dr. Lonnie Johnson Technology Research & Incubation Center (TRIC), designed to give students opportunities for industry practice.
At Spelman College, that approach has shaped seniors like Reese Winston, a computer science major who has already secured a job after graduation. “My recruiter was telling me how every Spelman student he talks to is prepared for the real world,” she says. This past summer, Winston worked as a technical project-manager intern at Verizon, streamlining systems for engineers. She has also interned at a leading technology platform, Unity, where she created her own virtual reality platform, and at Google as an AI/ML (machine learning) researcher, working to make Gemini more inclusive for speakers of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). She credits Spelman’s small-school culture and the opportunities available on campus for setting her up for success.
Winston’s experience highlights how individual preparation is backed by institutional investment. At Jackson State University, the investment has come through grant-funded initiatives by faculty like Berneece S. Herbert, Ph.D., who launched an energy workforce development project to expand opportunities in fields of emerging technology. “We at JSU understand our responsibility to help shape our communities and the competencies of our students,” Herbert explains.
FAMU’s Tamia Williams is a burgeoning fashion content creator.
The responsibility to prepare students does not end at graduation. Alumni like Justin “Mr. Fascinate” Shaifer show how HBCU graduates carry those skills into unexpected places—even reshaping how STEM itself is communicated to the world. A Hampton grad with a degree in Marine and Environmental Science, Shaifer credits the institution’s “competitively supportive environment” for pushing him to think bigger. “I no longer saw being a Black kid from a single-parent home on the South Side of Chicago as an excuse,” he says.
After completing his studies in 2016, Shaifer set his sights on “being like Bill Nye.” Frustrated with the limits of traditional television, he built his own platform, Fascinate Media, to forge a career in science communication. “When you’re young and have just graduated from an HBCU, it’s your freshman year of life again,” he says. “You have almost nothing to lose and everything to gain from just putting yourself out there and just learning as much as possible.” Today, through speaking engagements and his podcast, Curiosity Theory, with Dakotah Tyler, Ph.D., Shaifer is working to help people develop a new STEM mindset—one rooted in critical thinking, resourcefulness and adaptability.
For many, the introduction to HBCU culture comes through fashion. Style is everywhere—from alum in paraphernalia stitched with school colors or Greek (Divine 9) letters to the “fits” at homecoming or Royal Court. Fashion is not just an aesthetic at an HBCU; it’s a cultural currency.
“Fashion culture at HBCUs matters, because it’s bigger than just outfits—it’s part of our identity,” says Tamia Williams, a senior broadcast journalism student at Florida A&M University and Queen of Orange & Green. “It’s how we express ourselves, grow into who we are and prepare for the professional world. Even if you’re not trying to go into fashion, learning how to present yourself with confidence is something that translates into every career.”
Few embody this better than Tahir Murray, founder of Legacy History Pride (LHP). Murray’s aptitude for fashion started with his grandfather’s shoe-repair store in Queens, New York. The shop later became a sneaker business, after Murray’s family acquired the first Black-owned Nike account in the U.S. “Growing
up in the store, I saw the fashion business the way my dad and granddad approached it,” Murray says. “I learned that it wasn’t just about the products, it was about the relationships they built and the impact they had.”
When his family relocated to Atlanta, Murray was immersed in HBCU culture across academics, sports and the Atlanta University Center (AUC) community. Surrounded by Black excellence, his vision of his future on an HBCU campus began to take shape. “As a kid, I remember visiting Howard with my sister when she was a student there,” Murray recalls. “I remember walking the campus with her, seeing the band and being on the Yard. It immediately felt like home. At her graduation, President Obama gave the commencement speech. He did the call and response—‘HU. You know’—and I felt something. It was powerful and inspiring.”
Murray later attended Howard himself. He studied Business Administration, but he carved out his lane by joining the ELITE Modeling Organization on campus and interning with J.Crew before launching LHP. He has since designed Howard’s Centennial paraphernalia line, and he has secured partnerships with NASCAR and Nickelodeon. His brand is licensed with more than 30 institutions. “HBCU students are so talented,” he says, “and are getting sharper every year at building their brands and pursuing creative work. They just need the right tools and a stronger framework of support.”
That’s an idea common among HBCU alumni in the fashion industry. “HBCU graduates have been the unsung architects of American fashion culture,” says fashion and costume historian, and 2015 North Carolina A&T grad, Shelby Ivey Christie. “The brands that understand this know it’s not charity work, it’s smart business. We’re the ones setting trends, understanding emerging consumers and bringing authentic cultural insight. Partner with us like the powerhouses we are. Give us equity, not just exposure.”
Partnerships have emerged to directly fund and provide exposure to HBCU designers, both current students and alums. Harlem’s Fashion Row launched ICON360, an initiative providing scholarships and professional development for fashion faculty at HBCUs. “The ICON360 partnership provided North Carolina Central University [NCCU] with a platform to elevate our students and faculty onto the national stage,” says Darlene Eberhardt-Burke, Ph.D., interim associate dean and program coordinator for Fashion, Apparel and Textile Design at NCCU. “By aligning creative skills with industry standards, students gain the confidence and preparation needed to compete globally.”
Pensole Lewis College in Detroit (PLC) and Nike dropped an industry-certified design program, FUTURE SOLE, for HBCU students and graduates. And notably, Ralph Lauren partnered with Morehouse and Spelman to produce the now-viral Oaks Bluff collection, curated by Morehouse alum James M. Jeter—placing HBCU aesthetics in a global setting.
And the HBCU legacy in fashion dives even deeper. Oscar-winner, historymaker and Hampton alum Ruth Carter has used costume design for more than three decades to tell authentic stories, from Malcolm X to the world of Wakanda. Building on that legacy comes a new wave of HBCU alumni who are turning fashion into a scalable business. For Fayetteville State University alum Ahriana Edwards, discovering a new industry to transform started with a simple but frustrating problem: sourcing appropriate shoes. A student athlete and a business major, she struggled to find stylish, professional footwear for women with larger shoe sizes. “I couldn’t find the right shoes, and it was important to me because I had to prepare to present myself as a Black woman in business environments,” Edwards recalls. “Because when you enter a room, they look you up and down, and they form a perception of you.”
By her senior year in 2021, she’d decided to solve the issue herself, establishing her brand, Vaila Shoes. Her first break came when she submitted her pitch to Pharrell Williams’s Black Ambition prize and won seed funding to get started. From there, Edwards balanced a full-time job at Nestle while building her brand—doing pop-up shops, customer testing and conferences until she connected with her first retailer, Macy’s. Vaila continues to grow into a line that will meet the footwear needs of modern professional women. “I want to continue serving the same customer, which is the plus-size corporate woman,” Edwards says. “I think that as we look at the future of millennials and Gen Z being the new managers, the idea of what a ‘perfect’ corporate woman looks like will evolve, too.”
Faculty members across HBCUs note that the push to translate classroom experiences into business ventures is accelerating. “Students’ minds have expanded to understand that their opportunities are limitless,” says Erinn Tucker-Oluwole, Ph.D., chair of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore’s Hospitality and Tourism Management department. She points to initiatives like the school’s upcoming Private Club and Resort Management degree and its PGA-accredited golf-management program as examples of how HBCUs open doors in fields that students might not immediately view as entrepreneurial.
Expansion into less traditional and growing industries is the story of Delaware State University alum Tyrese Little, who is building his business in sports management and NIL (Name, Image and Likeness). Like Edwards, Little was a student athlete. He made the basketball team at Norfolk State University as a walk-on before realizing that he wanted to focus on earning a business degree. After transferring to Delaware State, he was thrown “right into the fire”: competing in a Deloitte case competition to solve a business challenge, against teams from schools like Morehouse, Spelman, Clark Atlanta and North Carolina A&T. His team snagged second place.
Graduating in 2021, Little got his first big break with an internship at Johannes Leonardo, an elite advertising agency in New York City. He recalls listening to the stories of executives, who told him about the business. “It’s one thing to get to speak to somebody who works within the system,” he says, “but it’s another when you get to speak to a person who created the system.”
That experience led Little to launch BlueRobin Group. This hybrid creative consultancy builds brand strategy for companies, and helps athletes manage their brands, in the new NIL era. His clients already include former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jawon Chisholm, West Virginia University’s running back and rising star Jahiem White, and several small businesses.
Looking ahead, Little wants to use his entrepreneurial success to create opportunities for the next generation of HBCU talent. “I think that part of our role as entrepreneurs is to turn around and create jobs and hire people,“ he says. “That’s what I’m focused on—figuring out how we can partner with HBCUs and get a pathway started.”
Alumni like MBS.Tech founder Miranda Stanfield exemplify that cycle of reinvestment. A 2011 North Carolina A&T graduate, she admits her journey has not been linear but says that A&T “believed in me when no one else would.” That foundation led her to a career in federal cybersecurity.
Stanfield now pours that belief back into students with her initiative, Tech on the Yard. The program offers an immersive tour that transforms HBCU campuses into career-empowerment zones for tech. Picture a mini AfroTech with the energy of an HBCU homecoming: a DJ, band, roll calls, and opportunities for students to meet recruiters and innovators. “We know what our student population is,” Stanfield explains. “Nobody wants to sit in a two-hour lecture. We’re bringing the homecoming vibe, but making sure students leave with the skills and confidence to step into tech.”
What unites every HBCU alum or student is not just talent but the belief that each one can—and must—leave an indelible mark. As industries shift under the weight of emerging technologies and economic uncertainty, who HBCU grads have been built to be, is useful not just for the workforce but for shaping the world. And in every field—STEM, fashion, business and beyond—the HBCU community continues creating leaders who carve out their own lanes and rise to the top.
