Posted on 07/24/2026 3:15:03 AM PDT by Libloather
Hundreds of incoming Howard University students from across the country were blindsided just weeks before the start of school after learning they had been unenrolled over unpaid bills.
Freshmen were informed this week that they had missed a July 10 payment deadline and would not be allowed to attend the upcoming fall semester at the private HBCU school in Washington, DC. ABC 7 reported.
Students were set to start moving into their on-campus housing on August 3 while the Fall semester begins on August 17.
Isabella Williams had her truck packed and was gearing up to take the long trip from her home in Alabama on Thursday to start her internship with the school’s football team next week when her dream school informed her she was unenrolled.
“Never in my life have I been so disappointed,” Williams said in a tearful video on her Instagram. “Never in my life have I gotten so far and worked so hard for it to be stripped from me on a random Wednesday.”
Williams, who was accepted to 42 colleges, committed to Howard University in May.
Williams said she had two guaranteed scholarships pending from Howard University, who was going to cover the remainder of her tuition balance due in July.
“I had two scholarships from Howard University. I had an $11,000 scholarship and a $16,000 scholarship that was directly from them,” Williams told the outlet.
She said she was as transparent with the school as she could be, sending them document proof that money would come in August and was told “everything was fine” and that her “scholarships could come through later.”
Williams said when she reached out to the university, she was told that there was “no way for us to come back,” and the school “suggested that we come back for...
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Oh my goodness! Students need to pay their bills? What a nightmare.
How the hell can you afford to apply to 42 colleges? When m kids were applying the fees were brutal. We limited the number to three.
No, it was the reason she was there early.
I had a work study job in college that required me to be there when the freshmen arrived, so I was there a couple of weeks before my classmates.
Almost 20 million black babies have been aborted since abortion became legal . Just imagine the crime rates , etc...we’d be faced with now if just half that number hadn’t been . Sorry to say but ...
There is a new thing, especially within the AA community, to ramp up the number of schools you get accepted to.
Most schools have free applications if you are a minority, or get referred by a current student or graduate, or attend a school visit by a college admissions rep, (or many other reasons).
I have seen a lot of recent articles about kids getting accepted to hundreds of schools. One article outlined how a kid was accepted to 299 schools out of 300 applications. But then enrolled at Cincinnati State of all places. It is a time wasting exercise, both for the student and the school.
But what Howard is trying to stop is kids going through all the motions to go to the school, arrive at the school without even a dollar invested, party and skip classes - all classes - and hog up dorm space that prevents others from attending.
It is a major problem generally but exponentially bad among HBCUs.
That's rayciss!
It might be interesting to see a list of which colleges accepted her.
You make a lot of claims.
So kids at Howard skip ALL classes?
And applying to many schools is “especially” an AA thing?
And “exponentially bad” at HBCUs?
Any references? Any?
It’s a truism from marketing that is as old as the profession: If you give something away, it loses all value. In this case, if you can apply to schools without charging…people will apply to ALL of them.
I guess that means that processing applications is done without a human ever touching them—or at least the first pass—because it would prohibitive for a school to assess each one individually.
I imagine that means “borderline” applicants never, ever get looked at. And that is a shame.
when i got my first home mortgage, the title insurance agent who conducted the closing summarized the terms of the mortgage as: “You don’t pay, you don’t stay.”
GOTTA ENSHRINE CHRIS ROCK.
You missed the point. The $27k in scholarships is not paying for a year of tuition at a private university. So she had a balance that she said she could pay in August, but their policy is must be paid by July. She didn’t pay in July and goodbye. Seems harsh but we don’t know what the college’s experience is with non-payment from students.
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