Black College Expo highlights Voorhees University’s open enrollment and HBCU history

Black College Expo gave Bamberg County families a direct look at Voorhees University’s open-enrollment pitch, along with a campus that says it offers the lowest tuition of any private school in South Carolina.

Voorhees traces its roots to 1897, when Elizabeth Evelyn Wright-Menafee founded the school as Denmark Industrial School. The campus opened in Denmark in 1902 after Ralph Voorhees and his wife donated $5,000 to buy land and build the first building, a start the university links to the Tuskegee model that influenced early Black education in the South.

Today, Voorhees describes itself as a private historically Black liberal arts institution affiliated with the Episcopal Church. The university says it was the first HBCU in South Carolina accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, and current materials say it is accredited to award baccalaureate, master’s and doctorate degrees in 12 disciplines.

That mix of history and access is the draw for local students who need a nearby option. The university’s admissions materials say it welcomes all people regardless of race, religion, color, creed, gender, marital status, age or national or ethnic origin, and it says international students are an important part of campus diversity.

Enrollment has also climbed. By fall 2022, Voorhees reported 501 students, including 466 undergraduates and 35 graduate students, up 25 percent from the year before. The university said 25 of those students were new international enrollees, with students coming from 17 states, the District of Columbia and countries including the Bahamas, Jamaica, Liberia, Nigeria and Benin.

The Denmark campus spans 365 acres in Bamberg County, about 50 miles south of Columbia, 90 miles northwest of Charleston and 55 miles east of Augusta, Georgia. Voorhees renamed itself from Voorhees College to Voorhees University on April 7, 2022, during its Founder’s Day convocation, the same year it marked its 125th anniversary. For Bamberg County families weighing price, distance and degree options, the expo put a long-standing local HBCU squarely on the map.