HBCUs are facing a myriad of challenges amid efforts to stay financially viable and competitive with majority counterparts. They are facing more pressure to reinvent themselves to stay alive and relevant as more and more Black students choose to attend majority institutions and private, for-profit colleges. Higher education administrators are getting strong signals from traditional funding sources--from state treasuries to wealthy benefactors--that the recent steady reduction in their support of most public HBCUs and many private ones is likely to continue for some time. Meanwhile, HBCUs are encountering heightened pressure to recruit and retain more academically qualified students as possible vehicles for improving their graduation rates. The impetus is not just the historically low graduation rates at HBCUs but, in recent years, the appearance of impressive results at online colleges serving as an example. Schools are also engaging in sweeping self-studies resulting in massive overhaul agendas. HBCUs--public and private--have slashed courses from their offerings, combined long-established departments and, in a few cases, raised admission standards, steering more students 10 community colleges and summer enrichment programs aimed at strengthening their basic college skills. Although still relatively new to online and distance learning, HBCUs are stepping up their efforts to compete for what is still considered a largely untapped potential pool of online and distance learning students: the non-traditional student.