502 Students Lose Spots at Howard Over Tuition
Qwenews.com – A’Zariah Miles had been waiting weeks for her chance to attend Howard University. Instead, she received news that shattered her plans. The 17-year-old from Knoxville, Tennessee, is among more than 500 incoming first-year students who were unenrolled from the historic Washington, D.C., institution. These students lost their spots just weeks before the fall semester begins on August 17.
Automated System Blocks Payment Plans
After receiving the unenrollment notice, Miles’ mother, Kendra Miles, discovered that the university’s automated system prevented the family from joining a payment plan. The amount owed made them ineligible for enrollment. “I’ve reached out since we got the email (Wednesday). I’ve emailed, literally, everybody,” Kendra Miles explained. Her adviser confirmed the decision was not an error and nothing could be done.
On Friday, Howard University confirmed that notifications were sent to “502 first-time-in-college students whose accounts did not reflect the required enrollment and financial obligations by the previously communicated deadlines.” Starting in March, affected students received specific communications about enrollment requirements, payment expectations, and deadlines through email and orientation sessions.
“The university recognizes that timing differences may have occurred between when financial aid was reflected and when charges were finalized,” Howard said in the email.
Students who believe their accounts did not accurately reflect their financial standing at the deadline should contact the Bursar’s Office. Each case will be reviewed individually to determine whether adjustments or reinstatement are appropriate. Howard, one of approximately 100 historically Black colleges and universities in the United States, had an undergraduate enrollment of about 11,000 last fall. The average annual tuition for undergraduate students living on campus is approximately $38,000.
Students Face Uncertain Futures
Housing costs add another $13,600 to the equation. Robert Kelchen, a professor of higher education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, noted that colleges must balance ensuring student enrollment while collecting payments. Howard “either had students who owed a lot of money and they didn’t think a lot of students would pay, or potentially, they have a really big incoming class and they can replace those students,” Kelchen explained.
Laverne Mickens, who coaches students and families on college scholarship applications, received more than 400 emails on Wednesday and Thursday from affected students and families. Most were strangers who were “frantic and crying.” “People are devastated,” said Mickens, who runs The Scholarship College Mama LLC, which is not affiliated with Howard.
“Parents are saying: ‘Can you help us? Howard unenrolled us.’ ” A’Zariah Miles, who plans to major in biology, chose Howard over other schools that accepted her. Now, she worries that it is too late in the summer to enroll elsewhere. “Everybody’s housing is booked, or I can’t enroll because it’s too late or I missed orientation,” she said. “I’ve been trying to continue to have hope with Howard, but I don’t really have that much time before school starts and I don’t really want to have a gap year.”
Like Miles, Saniah Collins learned on Wednesday that she was no longer enrolled at Howard. “My mom is part of a parent group chat,” said Collins, 17, of Atlanta. “That day we learned that a lot of students were getting unenrolled.” Collins received an email from the school Wednesday afternoon stating that a July 10 deadline to pay her tuition balance or make payment arrangements had passed and the school no longer could hold her place. But Collins said she was also told by an adviser that most of her balance for the fall semester was paid. She is not giving up.
“I worked like crazy to get into this school,” Collins said. “Howard has been my everything. My whole senior year, my whole summer I worked consistently on scholarships. We tried to make ourselves 10 steps ahead to make sure we were on the right page.”
Given that HBCUs are viewed as caring and nurturing places for Black students, the mass removal of students from Howard’s fall enrollment is a bad look for the school, said Marybeth Gasman, an expert in higher education at Rutgers University. “If it were me and it was over 500 students, I wouldn’t have done it in one day,” Gasman said. “I would have also done the due diligence of going through each one. Now, they are going to have to go back and do that.”
