A case study of the Franklin Lindsay Student Aid Fund and its intersection with Black college student access to higher education in Texas from the post-Civil War era to the present

The case study of the Franklin Lindsay Student Aid Fund is an historical examination of a sixty-two year-old private foundation originally created to help White Texas students pursue post-secondary education in the State of Texas. At the present time, the Fund is a thriving, $23 million student loan trust for all qualified young Texans. For this study, a qualitative research method was applied for an in-depth examination of the Franklin Lindsay Student Aid Fund and how it became accessible for Black students in Texas. Research also focused on the impact changes in Texas higher educational policy had on the outcome of the Franklin Lindsay probate court cases from 1954-1957, and the Fund’s reformation stages beginning in 1957. The results indicated three key findings: (1) The Tax Reform Act of 1969 (TRA69) ended the exclusion of Black students from the Franklin Lindsay Student Aid Fund, (2) Black students were still banned from the program for twenty-two years after the Brown V. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) decision and seven years after the TRA69, and, (3) Current committee members lacked knowledge about the history of the Fund.