Howard University faces student complaints about unexpected tuition bills
Howard University says that it is helping students deal with outstanding tuition balances after several shared complaints on social media that they were unexpectedly handed hefty bills for past semesters at the school.
The university switched to a new student platform, prompting at least 1,000 students to be notified that they still owed tuition for semesters going back two years in some cases. Some of those students posted their grievances with the university on social media, garnering millions of views. Though some students said they were being blindsided with new student debt, Howard said the students had owed the balances all along.
Many of the social media posts resulted in thousands of dollars being raised to help students resume their education after some said they could not continue at Howard without paying the debt.
In a statement Wednesday night, the university said half of the accounts with holds on them were “resolved due to student payments, financial aid or payment arrangements and holds are being lifted on their accounts.”
Howard University also said it would offer extended virtual and in-person office hours to help students.
Lydia Sermons, vice president of communications and chief communications officer at Howard, told NBC News that the tuition balances were always visible on student accounts except for a period between May and June when the school was undergoing a transfer of data from the old student portal to the new one.
Alexis Rodriguez, a junior studying political science and Africana studies, said she noticed she owed $15,000.
“I don’t have any financial safety nets. I’m just fighting to stay enrolled.” Rodriguez told NBC News. Before Rodriguez could reach the financial aid office for help, she was informed that her foreign language fellowship had been rescinded due to federal budget cuts and that she had lost her resident assistant position and housing stipend because of the owed tuition.
“Students at risk of homelessness don’t have time to wait for a system to figure things out,” she said.
A crowdfunding campaign for Rodriguez has raised nearly $7,000 toward her $10,500 goal.
Biology student Makiah Goodman’s multiple videos about the situation have collectively earned more than a million views. She’s raised more than $4,000 for the $6,000 she needs to continue attending Howard.
While some students were able to resolve the tuition discrepancies with the university on their own, others are trying to raise the needed funds together. A collective of nearly 150 students at the center of crowd funding efforts created the Instagram account, @whosehowardisit, and are keeping a list of students who still need funds to settle balances with Howard.
Nursing student Taliana Simpleton, from the Instagram account, told NBC News that the students on the website are “just a fraction of those who need help.”
