The Declining Payoff From Black Colleges

So outlived their original usefulness or must start to determine their value in the 21st century? Also I wonder if they measure all HBCUs as many are considered prestigious and then there are a few who well aren't as prestigious. From NY Times:

I mentioned in a recent post that students who choose to attend a historically black college instead of a more selective college may be hurting their future earnings prospects. There’s more evidence for this finding than I knew. A 2007 study, by Roland Fryer and Michael Greenstone, came to a similar conclusion.

The study found that historically black colleges and universities — often known as H.B.C.U.’s — lifted the pay of their graduates in the 1970s relative to their attending other colleges, all else equal, but that these colleges now bring a hefty wage penalty, on average, for their graduates. One possible reason is that traditionally white institutions began doing a better job of educating their black students in recent years, according to the paper.

“On the positive side,” Mr. Fryer and Mr. Greenstone wrote, “H.B.C.U. attendees became relatively more likely to be engaged in social, political, and philanthropic activities.”

So there is a silver lining? Still college is more about the academic than the social, political or philanthropic activities. What does an HBCU bring to the education landscape today?