On Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, much of the national conversation rightly reflects on values such as justice, equality and dignity.
Less often do we ask a harder question than King himself increasingly emphasized toward the end of his life: Are our institutions actually capable of delivering those values in practice?
The effectiveness of universities as engines of opportunity increasingly depends on the institutional systems behind the scenes.
Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) like North Carolina A&T State University (NC A&T) have long played a central role in answering that question. By expanding opportunities for young people, HBCUs also strengthen local and regional economies.
But a funding bottleneck is slowing them down.
King’s final campaigns focused squarely on poverty, not as a narrow moral failing but as a structural condition cutting across race, geography and background. He understood that civil rights without durable economic pathways would leave inequality intact.
That insight feels especially relevant today, as regions across the country confront rising costs of living, uneven access to opportunity and a rapidly shifting economy shaped by advanced energy, manufacturing and automation.
In that context, HBCUs deserve renewed attention, not as symbols, but as operational institutions with an outsized role in regional economic life.
HBCUs as economic engines, not abstractions
NC A&T alone generates hundreds of millions of dollars in economic impact and supports thousands of jobs, while producing graduates in engineering, agriculture, business and other fields that align directly with national workforce needs.
In many regions, these institutions are more than centers of learning. They function as backbone organizations.
They convene employers, manage federal and state funding, train talent and anchor place-based partnerships that would otherwise struggle to exist.
That role is not accidental. Faculty and staff at HBCUs often choose these institutions out of a deep sense of mission and contribution. Despite persistent resource constraints, the mission orientation remains remarkably strong.
The challenge is not a lack of talent or ambition.
The limiting factor is capacity.
When systems become the bottleneck
In practice, the effectiveness of universities as engines of opportunity increasingly depends on the institutional systems behind the scenes, particularly those governing research administration, grant management and compliance.
Federal funding is one of the most powerful tools for regional development, but it comes with significant complexity. Requirements under the Uniform Guidance, including subaward determination and monitoring, demand careful judgment, documentation and ongoing oversight.
In one regional partnership, the faculty I talked to described spending more time reconciling reimbursement documentation and monitoring subawards than meeting with students or employers. It was an invisible tax on impact that compounded over time.
The downstream effects extend far beyond paperwork.
Time spent navigating broken processes is time not spent mentoring students, building industry relationships or translating research into economic activity. Over time, this can quietly disincentivize the very regional collaborations that policymakers and funders say they want to encourage.
Ultimately, taxpayers lose out when universities cannot fully deploy their potential as engines of workforce development and innovation.
The promise of place-based partnerships
Nowhere is this disconnect clearer than in regions like Greensboro and the broader Piedmont Triad, where NC A&T plays a central role in federally funded, place-based initiatives.
Programs such as Steps4Growth demonstrate what is possible when education, industry and public investment align. Through apprenticeships and structured pathways, students gain access to good-paying, family-sustaining jobs tied to regional employers.
These models work. They are bipartisan. They are scalable and replicable.
And yet, capacity constraints remain real.
For every student able to participate in such programs, there are others who could benefit but do not, simply because institutional systems are stretched thin. As industries like advanced energy, autonomous systems and electric vehicles expand, the risk is not a lack of opportunity, but a lack of connection to it.
In many communities, HBCUs are the only institutions positioned to serve as that bridge. They link young people to structured education-to-workforce pathways and connect national innovation priorities to local talent.
King, institutions and the work of this generation
King himself was an HBCU graduate, shaped at Morehouse College by an understanding of education as preparation for leadership and service.
HBCUs like NC A&T and Shaw University were not incidental to the civil rights movement. They were among the connective forces that made sustained change possible.
King spoke of a dream not because he lacked a plan, but because translating moral vision into lived reality depends on institutions capable of carrying that vision forward under changing conditions.
Today, the dream is not abstract equality. It is whether young people in places like Greensboro, and in countless other regions with untapped potential, can see and reach a credible path to economic mobility.
When those pathways fail to scale, poverty becomes structural, opportunity becomes accidental and the consequences ripple outward. Public assistance systems, health systems and regional economies all bear the strain.
On this MLK Day, honoring King’s legacy means more than reflection. It requires asking whether we are willing to invest, not only in programs, but in the institutional capacity that allows opportunity to compound rather than stall.
If we take his vision seriously, the question before us is not only what we believe, but whether the institutions we rely on are equipped to deliver dignity and opportunity at the scale this moment demands.
