Howard University Faces Students' Complaints On Social Media About Unexpected Tuition Bills

Howard University says that it is helping students woody pinch outstanding tuition balances aft respective shared complaints connected societal media that they were unexpectedly handed hefty bills for past semesters astatine nan school.

The assemblage switched to a caller student platform, prompting astatine slightest 1,000 students to beryllium notified that they still owed tuition for semesters going backmost 2 years successful immoderate cases. Some of those students posted their grievances pinch nan assemblage connected societal media, garnering millions of views. Though immoderate students said they were being blindsided pinch caller student debt, Howard said nan students had owed nan balances each along.

Many of nan societal media posts resulted successful thousands of dollars being raised to thief students resume their acquisition aft immoderate said they could not proceed astatine Howard without paying nan debt.

In a statement Wednesday night, nan assemblage said half of nan accounts pinch holds connected them were “resolved owed to student payments, financial assistance aliases costs arrangements and holds are being lifted connected their accounts.”

Howard University besides said it would connection extended virtual and in-person agency hours to thief students.

Lydia Sermons, vice president of communications and main communications serviceman astatine Howard, told NBC News that nan tuition balances were ever visible connected student accounts isolated from for a play betwixt May and June erstwhile nan schoolhouse was undergoing a transportation of information from nan aged student portal to nan caller one.

Alexis Rodriguez, a inferior studying governmental subject and Africana studies, said she noticed she owed $15,000.

“I don’t person immoderate financial information nets. I’m conscionable fighting to enactment enrolled.” Rodriguez told NBC News. Before Rodriguez could scope nan financial assistance agency for help, she was informed that her overseas connection fellowship had been rescinded owed to national fund cuts and that she had mislaid her resident adjunct position and lodging stipend because of nan owed tuition.

“Students astatine consequence of homelessness don’t person clip to hold for a strategy to fig things out,” she said.

A crowdfunding run for Rodriguez has raised astir $7,000 toward her $10,500 goal.

Biology student Makiah Goodman’s multiple videos astir nan business person collectively earned much than a cardinal views. She’s raised much than $4,000 for nan $6,000 she needs to proceed attending Howard.

While immoderate students were capable to resoluteness nan tuition discrepancies pinch nan assemblage connected their own, others are trying to raise nan needed costs together. A corporate of astir 150 students astatine nan halfway of crowd backing efforts created nan Instagram account, @whosehowardisit, and are keeping a database of students who still request costs to settee balances pinch Howard.

Nursing student Taliana Simpleton, from nan Instagram account, told NBC News that nan students connected nan website are “just a fraction of those who request help.”