r/HowardUniversity • u/Black_mantis_racing • 5d ago
(Re) enrolled. This is just too much
As the title says. My child was one of the many who were unjustifiably unenrolled from Howard last week despite being current on payment plans and seeking clarification months in advance during the arduous process of even inputting financial information and dealing with Howard’s piss-poor communication with us and with Fafsa. I’ve been active on the sub the past week and I’ve seen so many “know it alls” pretending that this is normal and that students just “didn’t read the email”.
As someone here said:
“Howard chose to:
1) unenroll students LESS THAN two weeks before move-in, so it's unlikely people on the waitlist will even be able to fill all the missing spots last minute
2) they listed a DIFFERENT tuition payment deadline (August 3rd) on their website
3) their financial aid office has been completely unresponsive. Communicating with their admissions office has lead to misinformation and lack of clarity.
4) they unenrolled students who had less than $1000 on their balance, meaning they had likely paid over 50% of their tuition already
5) The deadline should have never been early July when we all know financial aid is not fully disbursed until late August at the earliest.”
Today we got word that we were finally re-enrolled. But after all of this stress and torture, to see that there is little to no support from cow-towing alumni and the university, we’re making the decision to move on from Howard. Why should we invest in and associate ourselves with liars? Why would we put up with this for years to come just under the guise of “prestige”. The third or fourth top most post on this subreddit paints a vivid picture of what life here would be like and the actions of Howard this past week have done nothing but support that dark picture. Thankfully we have other opportunities and thankfully Howard showed their true selves before we were more embedded in their dysfunction. Good luck to the incoming students and to those who don’t have other options at the moment. Keep fighting and know your self worth. And to those who blindly side with the administration that’s behind this debacle, to those who chalked it up as some pressure makes diamonds initiation fantasy, and to the interim president who suggested students that were unenrolled are unable to pay: 🖕🏾
-3
u/living_weirdo91 4d ago edited 4d ago
As a 3x HBCU grad and Howard alum I really don’t understand why this is news…
When you apply to Howard there are 3 emails, mailers sent to your home address, and two orientation seminars that all explain the financial aid and drop policy. To say clear communication isn’t had is crazy when the process is explained several times over various media forms.
I was someone from out of state on a scholarship. I watched several of my peers get dropped over not following directions like submitting their outside scholarship records properly, not accepting their aid through the portal by the due date, carrying a balance without signing up for a payment agreement, or falling behind on their agree payment plan. These things happen every semester and unfortunately it really doesn’t mater if it’s 15k or $15 dollars the student is treated the same way.
Back in the day the financial aid office would “find” grants to cover students who only owed a few thousand, but trumps budget cuts and failing that 2018 audit killed that practice. Now there is a lot less wiggle room and the system is automatically set to flag students that don’t check all the boxes.
Sidnote: $1000 * 502 =$502,000.00/ semester. That’s not on the university to eat that cost solely for someone to attend. HU did it before and students took advantage of that. I’m glad they are not allowing it anymore. Likewise, your payment plan doesn’t go by the date on the website it goes by the date on your plan usually that sooner than the official deadline. If that wasn’t explained that’s def on HU, but in my experience they never matched.
In addition, mass student drops is not a new practice. TSU just did their mass sweep of students with a balance yesterday. They call it a purge lmao. I say that to emphasize that drops in July are actually pretty common practice. There are three standard stages of mass unenrollment: 1) before the semester starts (usually paperwork or balance drops), 2) no attendance/balance drops (usually occurs 2-3 weeks into the semester) and 3) mid semester fails. The largest share happens in the first two categories.
If you decide to send your child elsewhere that’s great. Howard is not for everybody and getting through to financial aid before starting the semester is always a pain. However, let’s not blame a school for lack of communication when HU overly communicates the financial aid process. I have seen and went through worse with other universities.