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When Principal Asya Johnson talks about her alma mater, Delaware State University, what comes through is not simply the academic rigor, but the deep sense of belonging, connection and affirmation she experienced as a young Black woman who could excel in the world.
“I felt loved while I was on campus by my professors,” Johnson said. “I felt affirmed. I saw people who looked like me aspiring to complete higher education, and telling me, ‘I want to be a doctor, I want to be an educator or a lawyer.’ ”
Johnson is now looking to make that experience possible for a new generation of students of color, as the founding principal of the first early college high school in New York City inspired by historically Black colleges and universities. HBCU Early College Prep High School, which opened in Queens, New York, in fall 2025, is part of a broader effort to create innovative, community-driven and accelerated high schools designed in the style of HBCUs like Delaware State.
Students will graduate with not only a high school diploma, but also an associate’s degree and a guaranteed spot at Delaware State, founded in 1891 and ranked 10th overall among all HBCUs today. Just as important, they will experience a unique school culture modeled after Delaware State and other HBCUs. In fact, by their junior year students will be taught directly — but remotely — by Delaware State professors for certain courses.
Although New York City is home to more than 100 higher education institutions, it has no HBCUs. In fact, there are none in all of New York state.
“Young people of color just are not being exposed to HBCUs at all,” Johnson said. “We’re not even talking about HBCUs,” whose distinguished list of graduates include former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and actor and producer Samuel L. Jackson, to name a few. “And if we are, we’re either discrediting them, or we’re telling students that they can’t afford it, or they don’t give scholarships — none of which is true.”
That concern is echoed in UNCF’s recent Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges, which finds that many K–12 students — especially students of color — still lack meaningful exposure to HBCUs. The report underscores the urgent need for clearer, intentional pathways connecting young people to these historically Black institutions.
The new school, and the broader effort to develop HBCU-inspired high schools, is made possible with support from a partnership between UNCF (formerly the United Negro College Fund), the XQ Institute and Transcend, a national nonprofit that helps to design and support innovative schools. This coalition of organizations is also in the early stages of transforming an existing New Orleans public school into an HBCU-inspired, early college high school, with other communities also being explored for such efforts.
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“This work only happens because of the strength of the partnership,” said Sarah Navarro, the chief of schools and systems for the XQ Institute. “UNCF brings deep expertise in what makes HBCUs so powerful for student success. Transcend supports and facilitates the design process with communities. XQ ensures the model is built to transform high school — not just launch a single school.
“Together, we’re not just opening a new campus. We’re building a scalable model for how high schools across the country can connect students to college, culture and opportunity in a lasting way.”
Key hallmarks of HBCU Early College Prep include accelerated coursework, youth voice and choice, real-world learning and a deep connection to the local community.
Students are taking college courses beginning in ninth grade, with teachers receiving training by faculty at Delaware State, said Shawn Rux, a senior executive director in the Office of New School Development & Design at the NYC Department of Education, a key partner of the coalition. Eventually, those students will take virtual classes with Delaware State professors.
“The ‘intentionality around the school design” is key to this enterprise,” said Sekou Biddle, vice president for advocacy at UNCF. As part of the effort, the team asked, “What is it that we know about the HBCU experience that is so catalytic for students? And what if we were intentional about bringing those elements into high school?”
“It’s around [school] culture, it’s around instruction, but then it’s around bringing those principles to life,” Biddle said.
Channeling the ‘HBCU Magic’
To Rux and others, it’s not just the academic challenge; it’s the combination of that rigor with a strong, positive school culture that nurtures students and provides them a thoughtfully designed support system.
“I call it the HBCU magic,” said Rux, a Delaware State alumnus himself.
A valuable resource and reference point for the design of the new school came from a 2020 UNCF report, “Imparting Wisdom: HBCU Lessons for K-12 Education,” Biddle said.
“HBCUs are often overlooked as sources of effective methods for producing high-achieving Black students, although their existence is based on this very premise,” the Imparting Wisdom report notes. “HBCUs have been engines for ingenuity, academic excellence and social justice for decades, and the strategies and practices they implement can inform educational practices and systems.”
The report identifies a series of recommendations based on three “best practices” among HBCUs including: cultivating nurturing support systems with a high level of student and faculty interaction; leveraging African American culture and identity; and setting high academic expectations and an intentional college-going culture.
Students participate in a classroom discussion. They begin taking college classes in ninth grade and will eventually be taught by Delaware State University professors. (HBCU Early College Prep High School)
Competition to attend the new public high school was fierce, with some 1,000 applicants for about 100 seats. The school will grow each year, as it progresses from having ninth graders only to eventually a full slate of students in grades 9 through 12.
To apply, students are required to not only submit their academic credentials (including test scores), but also write a short essay about the Amanda Gorman poem, “The Hill We Climb,” and submit a video statement about themselves. While many students in the new class attended other New York City public schools previously, some came from private and parochial schools, according to Johnson.
“Our school is actually bringing students back into the public school system,” she said.
Designed for Belonging
Among those to earn a spot at the new Queens public school are ninth graders Mya Williams and Chance Thomas.
Mya, an aspiring veterinarian, was attracted to the school after hearing about it at a school assembly. Principal Johnson had been visiting middle schools to drum up interest.
“She talked about how we would get an associate’s degree at the end of our four years, and we would get college credits,” Mya said. “And that really caught my attention.”
Both students describe their new school as academically demanding, but also supportive.
According to Chance, the school is cultivating students’ work ethic and valuable skills like time management. “They definitely push us with the workload and the expectations, because a lot of our peers [at other schools] don’t have that,” she said. “Expectations are really high, but our professors [how teachers are referred to] are really supportive.”
“I think it’s good that we’re challenged,” Mya said. “It’s preparing us for college.”
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The two students also highlighted the “house” system, akin in some respects to sororities and fraternities, or to the student houses featured in the Harry Potter books and films, an analogy offered up by Principal Johnson. In fact, HBCU Early College Prep uses a point system like Hogwarts School, with rewards for those that amass the most. But in this case, the houses are named after well-known HBCUs like Spelman College and Howard University.
The experience “builds a sisterhood and brotherhood within those houses,” Chance said.
“Listen to how these students talk about their school. They’re describing rigor and community in the same breath,” said Aylon Samouha, co-founder and CEO of Transcend. “That’s not an accident. That’s the result of intentional design.”
“When students feel like they belong to something meaningful,” Samouha said, “when the adults around them have high expectations and real support structures, engagement stops being something you have to manufacture. It becomes the natural byproduct of a school that was designed with students’ full humanity in mind.”
Coming “home”
It didn’t take long for ninth graders at the new school to experience Delaware State firsthand. In November of last year, HBCU Early College Prep organized a field trip for students over homecoming weekend.
During the visit, the ninth graders toured campus and participated in a pinning ceremony with the college president. Over time, students will have the chance to attend career fairs and other activities at Delaware State, said Kareem McLemore, the university’s vice president for strategic enrollment management and international affairs. And, they will be earning college credits from the institution each year.
The high schoolers also had a chance to meet with upperclass students at an existing early college high school located on the Delaware State campus to better understand the accelerated model.
As part of the model, each student also is paired with a “success coach,” an upperclassman from Delaware State who can provide remote support, including tutoring and personalized academic advising.
As a brand new school with only ninth graders right now, HBCU Early College Prep is still early in its journey. But Principal Johnson, Rux from the city education department and their coalition partners are aiming high:
“We just want to make sure,” Rux said, “that when students walk out that door at the end of their four years, they’re fully prepared to really take on the world.”
Disclosure: The XQ Institute is a financial supporter of The 74.
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