Tryan McMickens recalls the "huge blow" he felt when, as one of only a few dozen African-American students at a large, predominantly white public high school in suburban Atlanta, he heard his favorite teacher advise him not to even consider applying to a historically black college. "She told me those schools would not be the best fit for me because those schools are not the best schools," he says. His experience at Tuskegee University, where he received his bachelor's degree in December 2005, proved her wrong on both counts. "While I was there I found a deep passion for research and for working in higher education," says McMickens, now a doctoral student in higher education management at the University of Pennsylvania. "To be around students [at Tuskegee] who look like you and who are ambitious and who set these tremendous goals was encouraging and empowering," he says. But the very fact that McMickens's choice put him on the defensive captures in a nutshell the challenges that black colleges face.