First, I have to identify myself as a non-D9 member. I chose this username before I realized that it might be misinterpreted as an AKA or Alpha Phi identifier. So please forgive me if I was misleading; I don't mean to misrepresent myself as a member of your great org.
Second, getting to the point
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How many non-ivy league schools can compare to those like Harvard?
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About 20 of them, according to the article, plus another 12 or 15 small colleges. My original post was responding to a specific statement about the Ivy Leagues that was incorrect. The Ivy League school with the lowest black graduation rate is Cornell at 83%. This is better than the HBCU with the highest graduation rate. Even if you believe that Harvard is handing out degrees in "underwater basketweaving" to all comers, do you believe that about Caltech, MIT, Rice, and Notre Dame, all of which have higher black graduation rates than any HBCU?
My point is this. HBCUs are the best choice for many students for a long list of reasons, many of which satisfied alumni have already pointed out on this thread. But high graduation rates are not on the list. The majority of students at the HBCUs with the highest graduation rates (such as Spelman, Morehouse, Howard, Fisk, and Hampton could go to top-20 PWIs like Harvard if they wanted to, so it really doesn't matter to them that the black graduation rate at fourth-tier PWIs is pitiful. The students we're talking about are choosing between HBCUs and the Ivy League et al., and the Ivy Leagues are doing a very good job of graduating their black students. That doesn't mean it's wrong to choose an HBCU over an Ivy -- it just means that it's wrong to suggest that "piss poor" black graduation rates at the Ivies ought to be a factor in the decision.
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I find it extremely convenient for them to obtain and analyze stats from NCAA then say it is Dept. of Education records. Dept. of Ed. does not = NCAA
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The NCAA is required to collect and report the data according to guidelines set by the Department of Education. That's why the data can be considered both NCAA and DoE statistics.
http://www.psu.edu/ur/archives/inter.../gradrate.html (scroll to the bottom of the page)
Do you have any reason to doubt that the NCAA information is accurate? I trust that the folks at JBHE know what they're talking about.