UNCF South Texas - Houston

“A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”® UNCF envisions a nation where all Americans have equal access to a college education that prepares them for rich intellectual lives, competitive and fulfilling careers, engaged citizenship and service to our nation.

UNCF’s mission is to build a robust and nationally-recognized pipeline of under-represented students who, because of UNCF support, become highly-qualified college graduates and to ensure that our network of member institutions is a respected model of best practice in moving students to and through college. UNCF’s North Star is to increase the total annual number of African American college graduates by focusing on activities that ensure more students are college-ready, enroll in college and persist to graduation. This is done through a three-pillar strategy. Positioning member institutions as a viable college option for students and investing in institutional capacity to improve student outcomes; creating transformational support programs to ensure students are enrolling and persisting through college completion; building awareness of educational attainment and cultivating college-going behaviors within the African American community.

For more than eight decades, this principle has remained at the heart of UNCF, enabling us to raise more than $6 billion and help more than 500,000 students and counting not just attend college, but thrive, graduate and become leaders. We do this in three ways: By awarding more than 12,000 students scholarships, worth more than $65 million, each year. By providing financial support to 37 historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). And by serving as the nation’s leading advocate for the importance of minority education and community engagement. This three-pronged approach is powerful: Since our founding in 1944, we’ve helped to more than double the number of minorities attending college. The six-year graduation rate for UNCF African American scholarship recipient is 70%. This is 11% higher than the national average and 31% higher than the national average for all African Americans.