The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced a five-year, $100 million commitment in support of efforts to transform institutions of higher education to close equity gaps for Black, Latinx, Indigenous, and low-income students.

The initiative will invest in six “Intermediaries for Scale” that will serve as connectors, advisors, and strategists: the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, Complete College America, Excelencia in Education, Growing Inland Achievement, and UNCF (United Negro College Fund). The intermediaries will focus on increasing awareness of successful and promising strategies; informing key campus-level decisions; providing guidance and resources for adopting, implementing, evaluating, and sustaining changes in policy and practice; and building connections across institutions and other supporting organizations to accelerate and streamline learning and sharing of promising practices. The goal is for intermediaries to collectively engage with at least 250 colleges and universities over the next five years.

According to UNCF, the catalytic investment will fund efforts to “power higher education as a racial and socioeconomic equity engine.”

“This grant will further the proven strategies of UNCF’s Institute for Capacity Building in ushering the next phase of Black colleges and universities,” said UNCF president and CEO Michael L. Lomax. A network of 41 diverse historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and predominantly Black institutions, the institute has helped increased rates in enrollment, retention, graduation, internship and post-graduation placement in career-related jobs or graduate studies and plans to expand to more than 50 partner institutions in 2023.

“The level of support is significant and means that AASCU member institutions will continue to lead the nation on postsecondary student success for America’s new majority at state colleges and universities,” said Mildred García, president of AASCU, which has selected 19 institutions to participate in its Student Success Equity Intensive.

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