502 students lose spots at Howard University over tuition payments just weeks before classes start
WASHINGTON (AP) — A'Zariah Miles' dream of attending Howard University was a few weeks from being realized. Then it all came crashing down.
Miles, 17, of Knoxville, Tennessee, is one of more than 500 incoming first-year students at Howard who learned this week that they have been unenrolled from the prestigious, historically Black Washington, D.C., university and no longer have spots for the upcoming fall semester that begins Aug. 17.
Many have taken to social media — some in tears — to share their stories. Some posts have gone viral.
After Miles learned she had been unenrolled, her mother, Kendra Miles, said the school's automated system would not allow the family to enroll in a payment plan because the amount that was owed made them ineligible to sign up.
“I’ve reached out since we got the email (Wednesday). I've emailed, literally, everybody," Kendra Miles said. “I emailed her adviser. He responded and said it wasn't a mistake and there was nothing they could do.”
On Friday, Howard confirmed in an email that the school sent notifications 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, the unenrolled students began receiving specific communications about enrollment requirements, payment expectations and deadlines via email and orientation sessions, the school said.
“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 account 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 about 100 historically Black colleges and universities in the United States, had an undergraduate enrollment last fall of about 11,000. The average annual tuition for undergraduate students living on campus is about $38,000. Housing costs are about $13,600.
Robert Kelchen, a professor of higher education at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, said colleges generally try to walk a fine line in making sure students can enroll, but also making sure students pay their bills.
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 said.
Laverne Mickens coaches students and their families on how to apply for college scholarships. Mickens said that she answered more than 400 emails Wednesday and Thursday from students and families impacted by the enrollment situation at Howard. She said most of them were strangers and they 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 is worried that it is too deep into 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 and others, Saniah Collins learned Wednesday that she no longer was 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 that said 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's 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 seen 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.”
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Williams is as member of AP’s Race & Ethnicity team. He reported from Detroit.
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