'I was freaking out,' says Howard University student among 500 unenrolled over tuition payment

Howard University has reinstated dozens of the more than 500 incoming first-year students it unenrolled last week over missed tuition and financial-aid deadlines, leaving hundreds still without a place in the class weeks before the fall semester begins.

While some are breathing a sigh of relief, many prospective students have been left in limbo and in a state of confusion -- some traveling to Washington, D.C. from all across the country to attempt to resolve the situation in person.

Last week, the university said 502 students missed a critical tuition payment deadline that would have otherwise secured their registration for the Fall 2026 semester, which starts on August 17.

The school claims that students received a wide range of tuition and financial aid deadline notifications beginning in March, with additional notifications every month, including in July ahead of the school's July 10 deadline that reminded incoming freshmen to submit their tuition payments.

But some incoming students claim they never received a notification at all. Others told ABC News that the only notification they received regarding the tuition payment deadline came the day it was due, sending people like Nikiyah Clark, a 17-year-old incoming freshman, scrambling to try and find the funds last minute -- causing her to miss the deadline.

The next notice Clark said she received was one unenrolling her from the school. Clark told ABC News she took a Greyhound bus at 2:30 a.m. Monday in an attempt to regain her spot at the school.

“I was freaking out,” Clark said when she received a notice from the school that stated that she had been unenrolled. “I was so scared because Howard University is my dream school, like, my grandma went there,” she said.

“On July 22, on a Wednesday, I got this email to my Howard email, and basically it says, you have declined your offer to attend Howard University,” Clark explained, adding, “However, I never did that, so I was kind of confused.”

“Then I got another email around 3:00 p.m., like, a couple hours later, basically saying you missed the July 10 payment and -- because of that -- because you missed the July 10 payment, you will not be able to attend our university. All decisions are final,” Clark told ABC News.

In a statement, Howard’s office of communications is standing by the school's decision, stressing that its enforcement actions are to “ensure the University can appropriately allocate resources to support all enrolled students.”

Howard explained that students who didn’t complete their “established payment, payment arrangement, or scholarship and other financial aid reporting deadlines” have been denied enrollment.

ABC News was not immediately able to determine why accounts from the university and some of its incoming freshmen differed regarding the communications from the school reminding incoming students about their payment deadline.

A spokesperson for Howard declined to provide ABC News with the documentation of the notifications it claims to have sent to incoming students.

Howard did not directly address the communications discrepancies but said it’s “reviewing information related to enrollment status, anticipated scholarship funding, and other financial aid, where appropriate.” 

It is expected to provide updates on the reenrollment numbers later this week, according to the spokesperson.

But Erin Lynch, the president of Quality Education for Minorities (QEM) Network, a non-profit education organization, explained that what happened at Howard is typical at most higher education institutions. 

“Universities do drop deadline dates,” Lynch told ABC News. “They set drop deadline dates for students because you know they need to have secured payments in place before they can actually have students show up on campus, so what happened is standard across colleges and universities across the country,” she said.

The Howard spokesperson said in previous years it has been standard practice to unenroll a small number of incoming freshmen who have missed tuition deadlines. With newly appointed enrollment officials in the admissions office, the school is now cracking down even harder on missed payments, according to the spokesperson.

Meanwhile, several frustrated families who said they traveled hours to D.C. seeking accountability from the school were still waiting in the queue at the school's administration building as of Monday evening.

Rasha Jackson, whose cousin is an incoming first-year student from California, said she waited more than six hours on behalf of the family before she was seen by a school representative.

With school starting for all students in just three weeks, Jackson said her cousin still hasn't been reinstated.

“It's just like no one [in administration] cares,” Jackson told ABC News. “That's the disappointing part about it because, you know, I advocate strongly for HBCUs. I always encourage students, ‘Hey, apply to that HBCU,’ let's go where we're gonna be accepted and appreciated and not tolerated,” she said.

“This is a big slap in our face,” she added.