Supporting HBCUs and HSIs

As part of the Capital One Impact Initiative, we continue to build long-term relationships with HBCUs and PBIs.

In 2021, Capital One supported the creation of a new certification course at Texas’s oldest HBCU, Paul Quinn College.

The PQCx program is a short-term program — offered for three- and six-month windows — that strives to promote the economic growth of low-income workers through reskilling. The certification will drive and protect the economic growth of underrepresented workers and provide them the opportunity to earn an industry-recognized credential without burdensome student loan debt.

We also worked with Delaware State University to bring the state’s only HBCU back to Wilmington after nearly a decade of operating a satellite campus several miles outside the heart of the city. The partnership was anchored in a $4.7 million in-kind donation of Capital One’s riverfront facility made in August 2021 and unveiled in February 2022 alongside the Delaware Congressional Delegation, Delaware State University trustees, faculty, staff, and students and several civic leaders. The in-kind donation is deepened through Capital One’s recruiting relationship with Delaware State University to expand opportunities for students to pursue careers within Capital One.

Additionally, we built upon our $1 million commitment to supporting HBCUs through grants to the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF) and United Negro College Fund (UNCF), a suite of programs to deliver skills training to HBCU students and strong public support of policies that strengthen HBCUs across the country.

In partnership with the TMCF, we launched the Capital One Build to Best HBCU Early Talent Program in 2021. During its first cohort, 100 second-year students from across 29 different HBCUs enrolled in the program.

The program provides professional development to rising sophomores with an emphasis on CreditWise, Capital One’s credit management program, soft skills, career readiness training and personal education plans for on-time graduation.

Through dedicated programming to prepare students for financial independence in their post-graduate careers, TMCF and Capital One are addressing some of the nation’s most difficult issues while creating both short-term impact and sustainable outcomes with underrepresented groups.

Capital One also invested in the BlackRock Liquid Federal Trust Fund (BLFT), a fund created by BlackRock in partnership with the TMCF, to support students of HBCUs and PBIs in their journey to college and into upwardly-mobile careers. Additionally, we provided a $1 million grant to Braven to support its launch of a multi-year partnership with Spelman College to support career acceleration for the next generation of Black women leaders.

Our commitment to campus recruiting and engagement extends internationally, as we are working closely with organizations in the U.K. such as UpReach to support underrepresented applicants from a wider range of universities.

In addition to these direct partnerships, Capital One engages with a number of other HBCU and HSI students through skill-building and networking events including our HBCU Summit and our First-Gen Focus program (FGF) — which is designed specifically for first-generation college students who often face distinct challenges in their college career.

In 2021, more than 85 students participated in FGF. This program serves as part of Capital One’s broader effort to engage students earlier in their college careers to create access to financial education and skill-building workshops to help them be more successful in their college careers and beyond.

Capital One also supports the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), which represents more than 500 colleges and universities committed to Hispanic higher education success in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Latin America and Spain.