Howard Revisits Disenrollment Decision

Howard University has reinstated more than 200 of the 502 incoming students it initially disenrolled ahead of the fall semester, following a review of every affected student’s case, Interim President Wayne Frederick told Inside Higher Ed Wednesday.

The updated figure marks a significant increase from the 46 reinstatements previously reported. Frederick said students who were reinstated either demonstrated that they had met the university’s payment commitment or provided documentation showing they had outside scholarships or other financial aid that had not yet been reflected in their accounts.

Frederick also outlined changes Howard plans to make to its communications with incoming students. He said the university will make it clearer that students need to pay at least 50 percent of their balance to retain a spot and will include numerical examples to illustrate that requirement. Howard will also provide more “high-touch” support for students who need additional assistance navigating the enrollment process, he said.

At the same time, Frederick pushed back on the suggestion that Howard’s communications with students had not been effective. Asked by Inside Higher Ed why so many students believed they remained enrolled even after receiving messages that told them otherwise, Frederick said he “disagreed with that sentiment.”

More than 2,200 students “were ready, obeyed the deadlines, filled out the forms and were enrolled, which means the majority of students were ready and this is a smaller group,” Frederick said. “It means that something worked for those people who represented more than 90 percent of the students.”

Behind the Decision

In an interview with CNN Sunday, Frederick said Howard’s decision to disenroll students this year was “not unusual,” but that the university “hadn’t been as strict” about enforcing payment deadlines in previous years.

Frederick offered Inside Higher Ed a detailed explanation for why Howard enforced its enrollment deadlines more strictly this year. He said uncertainty around last year’s incoming class complicated faculty hiring, classroom planning and the university’s overall readiness for the fall semester.

“Our readiness was not ideal because we were unsure how many students we were going to have and therefore how much faculty we needed [and] what the space requirements were,” Frederick said. “That’s something that I did not want to see repeated.”

Frederick also said that students’ lack of financial preparedness last year played into Howard’s decision to stick fast to the enrollment deadline. During the 2025–26 academic year, 16 percent of students had a balance of $10,000 or more at the end of the first semester, he said, while 9 percent finished the academic year owing at least that amount.

“When I put all of those things together, that’s not ideal for those students to succeed,” Frederick said. He noted Howard’s four-year graduation rate is below 70 percent and said the university is working to raise it. “The only way we’ll get there is if we really push around some of these issues and make sure that students are ready and we can be ready to receive them as well.”

Howard Pushes Back

As the fallout from Howard’s decision continues, New York officials and other institutions have moved to offer enrollment opportunities to disenrolled students. New York is guaranteeing admission to eligible residents at participating State University of New York and City University of New York campuses, while the University of the District of Columbia, an HBCU also in Washington, D.C., has extended its enrollment deadline to Aug. 7 for students affected by Howard’s decision.

Asked about those efforts, Frederick told Inside Higher Ed the institutions were “well within their rights” to recruit affected students. But he also questioned why colleges able to accommodate hundreds of additional students late in the admissions cycle were not facing similar scrutiny over their available enrollment capacity.

“There’s a lot of tension on Howard,” Frederick said. “If I had that type of space to take those students in July … is your enrollment low?”

Frederick also argued that Howard has been treated differently than other colleges that enforce enrollment or payment deadlines.

“This happens at other schools,” Frederick said. “I saw a school today put out an announcement that if you don’t meet your financial obligations by July 31st, you won’t be enrolling with us. I haven’t seen a single news report about the fact that somebody might question that somebody will wait until July 31st to take those students out.”

“Howard is unique in terms of how it’s been treated by the media and other people for decades, for its entire existence,” he added.

After the Fallout

In an interview with WTOP on Wednesday, Frederick was asked whether he was concerned about the impact the disenrollments could have on Howard’s reputation.

“I’m not. I don’t want to be naïve that negativity in the social media realm and in the press isn’t good for us. But I also think when people start saying things like ‘because we’re Howard, we should accept these students if they don’t follow the procedures, etc.,’ I think that that’s a very misguided commentary,” he told WTOP.

In his conversation with Inside Higher Ed, Frederick struck a similar tone when asked whether Howard would change its enrollment processes for the next admissions cycle.

“It will definitely have us double down on making sure that we stick to the deadline so that we can honor what the 2,200 students did,” Frederick said. They “did the right thing.”