Scholarship in composition and rhetoric has certainly addressed issues of African American economic inequality (Gilyard) and institutional austerity (Welch and Scott), yet the field has failed to address how both are united in the site of the contemporary HBCU. In particular, composition scholars have not explored how the shifts of the new economy have imperiled students at some of the most marginalized universities in the country and how compositionists might address these challenges. Strictly speaking, the standard tools of the compositionist are of marginal help when it comes to the overwhelming financial crises of the HBCU and the African American community. Because of this, the author believes that we have the additional obligation to engage with publics beyond the academy to better expose the abandonment of these institutions.