Howard University in Financial Distress

rockvillemom
Tue, 11 Jun 2013 19:00:19 +0000

And a Howard University board member refutes the allegations:

[Board leader: Howard U. remains strong - The Washington Post](http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/board-leader-howard-u-remains-strong/2013/06/10/16fa4332-d1dc-11e2-a73e-826d299ff459_story.html)



The chairman of Howard University’s Board of Trustees declared Monday that the school’s future is bright, rebutting concerns raised in another trustee’s scathing critique of the university’s leadership.

“As Chairman I want to assure you that working together with input from all of the University stakeholders,” Addison Barry Rand wrote in a letter to the campus community, “Howard University remains academically, financially and operationally strong.”





Howard faces an unusual confluence of challenges. Its student enrollment in fall 2011 was 10,583. By fall 2012, the total was 10,002. Most of the drop was in undergraduate enrollment. University officials say one reason enrollment fell was that federal officials tightened eligibility requirements for a type of loan to parents known as PLUS loans, making it harder for families to pay the bills at the private university.

Tuition and fees were about $22,700 for undergraduates in the school year that just ended. That was up about 12 percent from the year before but is still lower than the price of many private universities. The board has decided to freeze tuition and fees for the coming school year.

Another issue is the federal budget sequester.

Howard relies much more heavily on federal funding than other historically black colleges.