Founded in 1881 as the Atlanta Baptist Female Seminary, Spelman College once again leads US News 2025 rankings for top HBCU for the 19th year in a row.
The private all-women’s historically Black college in Atlanta, with just over 2,700 students, was also the highest-ranked Georgia school in the list of national liberal arts colleges, coming in at no. 37. The school in West End also ranked no. 94 in terms of Best Value.
Notable alumni from Spelman College include: Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors member Lisa Cook, actress Danielle Deadwyler, former Georgia State representative Stacey Abrams, and poet and novelist Alice Walker.
Spelman has been the recipient of several large donations from celebrities and philanthropists. Last year, the college celebrated the official opening of the newly renovated LaTanya Richardson Jackson and Samuel L. Jackson Performing Arts Center after the couple’s $5 million donation.
“Sam and I are continually invested in the success of Spelman College because Spelman first invested so much in us,” Richardson Jackson said at the center’s opening celebration, which also included the unveiling of a mural dedicated to the couple’s professional achievements. “Everything I know, all of my beginnings, were in this building. It is an honor for us to help support the school’s vital mission, and to ensure that it continues to serve as a space of inspiration and training for the next generation of leaders. May the unveiling of this glorious mural be an inspiration to the beautiful artists past, present, and future who walk these halls.”
According to Spelman, their contribution marked the largest alumni donation in Spelman’s history. The Jacksons also helped to secure additional support for the renovation, bringing the total funds raised to $17.3 million.
Donations for renovations and student scholarships are critical given the uncertainty swirling around the Trump administration’s plans for HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions.
Last week, Capital B reported that the Trump administration said it will redirect $435 million to HBCUs and tribal campuses as it also defunds grant programs for minority students at other institutions.
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Among institutions defunded are Hispanic-serving institutions and predominantly Black institutions, which are different from HBCUs. HBCUs are colleges and universities founded before 1964 with the intention to serve Black communities. PBIs are campuses with about half the student body identifying as Black or African American, such as Chicago State University, Georgia State University, and the Community College of Philadelphia.
Nonprofit organizations that work closely with HBCUs celebrated the increased funding, calling this a win for the Black colleges. The United Negro College Fund said it supports the reprogramming of the funds in a statement.
“HBCUs are pretty much the only group of higher education institutions that’s never discriminated against [applicants],” Lodriguez V. Murray, UNCF’s senior vice president for public policy and government affairs, told Capital B. “You check our history on who could be enrolled in our institutions; we’ve never had a policy that this race cannot attend our institutions.”
Murray noted that while HBCUs are not classified as minority-serving institutions, they are recognized by Congress, UNCF, and several administrations as such.
The top ten HBCUs listed in the US News rankings are Spelman College, Howard University, Morehouse College, Tuskegee University, Florida A&M, Xavier University of Louisiana, Hampton University, North Carolina A&T, Morgan State University, and Delaware State University.
According to US News, the 2025 edition of their rankings, which includes reviewing 1,700 colleges and universities, is designed to give families and students a starting point to assess the “relative quality of the educational experience at schools according to widely accepted indicators of excellence.”
Additional reporting by Alecia Taylor.
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