Hughes was born in 1951 in Miami, Florida,[2] one of five children of Gerald Clayton Burke, an African American mathematics teacher.[3] She majored in mathematics as an undergraduate at the University of Rhode Island. After a master's degree in mathematics from the University of Maryland, College Park,[2] in the early 1970s, she became a remedial mathematics instructor at Howard University.[1] While continuing to work at Howard University, she completed a Ph.D. in educational psychology there,[2] with Sylvia Taylor Johnson as her advisor and mentor.[1]
Several years after completing her Ph.D., she transitioned from an instructor to a regular-rank assistant professor, in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction.[1] As a faculty member at Howard University, she led the university's Office of Institutional Assessment and Evaluation, and served as co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Negro Education,[4] before retiring as a professor emerita.[1]