Negga, Applewhite, and Livingston (2007) studied stress among African American students attending Predominately White Institutions (PWIs), to those attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in a self-administered survey. The samples consisted of 344 undergraduate students enrolled in HBCUs, and 165 students who attended PWIs. The researchers found significant correlations between social support and academic stress among all students. African American students attending HBCUs and PWIs reported higher levels of academic stress than Caucasian students at PWIs. High levels of social support were associated with lower levels of stress for HBCU students. In contrast, African American students attending PWIs reported lower levels of social support compared to their Caucasian colleagues and HBCU students. The research results suggest that assessing the factors of depressive symptoms is important in order to understand the causes of …show more content…
This research confirmed African American students underutilize counseling services and have less positive experiences than peers of other races. These findings suggest African American students felt unable to engage in difficult dialogues on the topics of race, discrimination and religion with university counselors of the opposite race. Additionally, Duncan (2005) found that college counseling facilities that had at least one African American counselor saw four times as many students as those that did