[tom_b]

Can't speak to YC's experience, but I attended a historically black college/university (referred to as HBCUs) and knew a number of top-notch African-American CS students/hackers while I was there.

At one point, out of 7 or 8 undergrads in a research group I was with, more than half had completed PhDs and I think the rest of us (I was the lone white student in the group) had picked up MS degrees.

A number of the higher-quality students from this institution were heavily recruited by big corps with eyes on increasing minority hires and diversity rates.

What I mostly know is that successful CS students from this institution had their choice of top-notch careers or academic research opportunities. As a school (and my general region), not much emphasis was placed on entrepreneurship. Maybe both facts come into play with startup culture today.