‘What happened to Truth and Service?’: Incoming Howard freshmen speak out after sudden unenrollment emails
Incoming Howard University freshmen say they were unenrolled despite believing their financial aid, grants and scholarships covered their tuition.
Back-to-school season is around the corner. And this week, as incoming college freshmen have been shopping for their dorms, Howard University reportedly shocked hundreds of students by sending emails stating that they had been unenrolled from their classes and the university due to unpaid balances. In light of the shocking news, parents and students alike took to social media to raise awareness of the matter and, hopefully, get answers.
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Though every student’s financial aid situation is different, they all report receiving an email on July 22 that read:
“We are writing to follow up on your interest in attending Howard University. The July 10, 2026, deadline to make your tuition payment or payment arrangement to secure your enrollment has passed. As a result of this missed deadline, we can no longer hold your place at Howard University’s incoming class. The payment deadline was communicated in previous notices and reflected in your student financial account.
We recognize that circumstances can change, and we appreciate the time and interest you invested in Howard University. Although you will not be able to enroll as a first-time-in-college student for the upcoming term, we encourage you to consider applying as a transfer student to Howard in the future.”
However, for students like Kendra K, an incoming freshman from Atlanta, Georgia, the payment deadline was reportedly not communicated. In an interview with theGrio, Kendra shared that after submitting her enrollment deposit, she noticed inconsistencies in the university’s communications about when payments would be due.
“One day, you would see a payment date in August, and then out of nowhere, my roommate had texted me and said, ‘Oh, there’s a payment due July 10th.’ And this was in June,” she shared. Naturally, she and her family called the HBCU’s bursar’s office to handle any outstanding payments. “Fortunately, we were able to reach them and communicate with them because I know a lot of students that are going through this couldn’t even reach the financial aid office to get clarity on their situation, which is also probably why they got unenrolled as well.”
She recalls her family calling their offices twice, once on July 2nd and again on July 8th. During the call on July 2nd, she says a female representative from the Bursar’s office told her that she was “covered for the semester” thanks to the grants and scholarships that she had received from the HBCU.
“She said I was all covered, and that I didn’t have to make a payment plan or anything. And I asked her, like, okay, I keep getting emails, what do I need to do? And her response was ‘Oh, no, you’re all covered, just wait for your stuff to roll in,” Kendra shared. “So even though, like, I would see on my [portal] that I had a balance, she said to just ignore it because I was all covered.”
Advice, she said, was echoed to her both by her and her father when they called in the following days. And reportedly, she was not the only one to receive this news. Kendra noted that one incoming freshman said their advisor was encouraging them to make a payment to “secure their spot,” even though they were technically covered by grants, scholarships, etc.
“I found out yesterday that I had been dropped. And I’m supposed to move in on August 6th. And it’s one thing if they message me the day after, like on July 11th or 12th. But they decided to email me, literally, 13 days before my move-in,” she shared. “I know I’m supposed to check all my stuff, but that’s what I did, and I was just misled.”
For 18-year-old Isabella Williams, the news came hours before she was scheduled to travel from Alabama to Washington, D.C., where she was supposed to move in early to start her media internship with the HBCU. It was not until she came home from a final hangout with friends from her hometown that she learned she had been unenrolled from her dream school.
“ I’m not one to show a lot of emotion. I don’t think that it necessarily helps situations all the time,” Williams told theGrio. “But I also know that because of that because people could see just how genuine it was and how scared I really am, I knew that it would do something. And rather than just sitting and crying in my room, I might as well sit and talk about the issue and advocate for myself and other people.”
“My dream school is Howard University. That honestly hasn’t changed,” she added.
As a result of their unenrolled status, Williams, Kendra, and hundreds of other incoming freshmen can no longer access the financial aid statements in their portal. Both students report that everything has been “zero’d out,” and Kendra, who received scholarships front he university, is now relying on previously downloaded copies of her statements when advocating for her spot in the HU class of 2030. Though getting in touch with the university has been a struggle for most students impacted by the mass unenrollment.
“They dropped that email at around 2:19 PM. They then closed around 2:30 PM, so there wasn’t much time to call. They’re closed today. They’re not accessible tomorrow either, so we have to wait until Monday to do anything,” Williams explained. “And for people who have gotten a response on their emails, to sum it up nicely, they’ve practically just said, ‘you can try again next year, but there’s nothing we can do about it.’ They’ve just said that we can transfer in as a transfer student, but we can’t come in as incoming freshmen.”
And whenever Williams and her family have called, if they get a response, it has been to email enrollment management. All of these factors, she says, have sparked sentiments of grief, frustration, disappointment, and more among the incoming freshman class. Leaning heavily on each other for information and support, Williams says she’s using her viral video to advocate for the entire class of 2030.
“You are not in our situation. You don’t understand it. And even if you have been, we are all different people,” she said, addressing social media critics. “Also, I’m not trading comfortability for affordability. That’s not how that works. A lot of people said they want to go to Howard or to other H.B.CUS because, for once, they do not want to be the minority, especially at this time, and really any time in our country, we’ve had so many issues. It’s just not fair. If students want to give themselves a chance to be with people like them to grow and learn from people like them, we should be given a fair shot. We should not have to go to PWI just because it’s cheaper. We should not have to go there just because we can get a minority scholarship. That is not how that works. It’s our lives. Especially, it’s our black lives, and we should be comfortable in our skin wherever we go, but especially at an HBCU.
Both Kendra and Williams shared plans to travel to DC to try to resolve the matter in person if the school remains unresponsive by phone. When asked what she would tell Howard University administrators handling the matter, Williams asked: “What happened to Truth and Service?”
“I’ll be honest. my mother back in 1984, she wasn’t able to continue her education at Howard either. Great grades, amazing community service because she didn’t have the funds,” she continued. “I worked to make sure that I did. Now I’m continuing on a legacy. that my mother wasn’t afforded. What happened to carrying on the next generation of Black leaders? Do you want leaders or do you want followers? Do you want people who are succumbing to their finances, or do you want people who will uplift themselves and others? You can only have one choice. You can’t have both. It’s just not going to work. If you want to lose what you’ve built, then sure, go ahead. But I don’t think that’s the path that any of us want to take.”
At the time of publication, Howard University has not responded to theGrio’s requests for comment.