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Trump signs executive order on black colleges Tuesday Feb 28, 2017 at 5:18 PM Feb 28, 2017 at 5:18 PM By Errin Haines Whack Associated Press WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday aimed at signaling his commitment to historically black colleges and universities, saying that those schools will be "an absolute priority for this White House." HBCU presidents are hoping Congress will bolster Trump's actions to strengthen the schools with dramatically increased funding in the upcoming federal budget. They are calling for $25 billion for infrastructure, college readiness, financial aid and other priorities. Under President Barack Obama's administration, historically black colleges and universities received $4 billion over seven years. "The next step is the budget. You cannot have mission without money," Thurgood Marshall College Fund President Johnny Taylor told reporters outside the White House after the signing ceremony. Many of the college presidents also went to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to lobby Congress for more funding. Taylor said the $25 billion is needed to make up for years of underfunding and would cover the country's more than 100 HBCUs. Several presidents and HBCU advocacy organizations echoed Taylor's sentiments. "This is a great day for my membership and a great day for America," said Lezli Baskerville, head of the National Association For Equal Opportunity in Education, an umbrella group for public, private and land-grant HBCUs. GOP lawmakers said there were currently no concrete plans for increased funding. Several of them attended meetings Tuesday that Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., and Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C., arranged with HBCU presidents, GOP officials and business leaders. Scott said he and Walker planned to personally push for more money for black colleges, and "hopefully we will be more successful than they have been in the last few years." House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said if Trump was interested in helping HBCUs, he would increase spending on education instead of proposing cuts. "President Trump's HBCU executive order is more empty symbolism that will do nothing to strengthen these vital institutions and the students they serve, Pelosi said. "HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions need resources and opportunities, not empty rhetoric from a president planning to devastate education funding in America." Trump's order moves the Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities from the Department of Education into the executive office of the White House. It directs the initiative to work with the private sector to strengthen the fiscal stability of HBCUS, make infrastructure improvements, provide job opportunities for students, work with secondary schools to create a college pipeline and increase access and opportunity for federal grants and contracts. It does not specify how much federal money the colleges should receive.