With just a few weeks until school starts, students at one of the nation’s top historically Black universities, are wrapped up in a unbelievable financial scandal. Now, scholars at Howard University are flooding social media after hundreds discovered they still owe the school thousands of dollars…and according to them, the math isn’t mathing.
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Howard reported around 1,000 students had unsettled balances on their accounts at the end of the Spring 2025 semester. But many students said they weren’t made aware of the outstanding fees until the very last minute. Most of the discrepancies seemingly came after Howard transitioned from BisonWebn– the school’s previous student financial platform — to BisonHub, the current platform.
“I have nine days to pay Howard somebody’s salary,” @leleluvsyu said on TikTok. The rising senior explained she owes $41,000 to the university. It’s no secret Howard is one of the most expensive HBCUs (historically Black colleges or universities) in the nation.
Unlike in past years, however, delays in communication between BisonWeb and BisonHub backfired on students, who claimed their previously cleared balances are no longer visible.
On June 4, they received emails saying if their balances weren’t paid off by the end of the month, their bills would be sent to an external collections agency — which would result in 25 to 30 percent interest rates for borrowers. Although the original deadline was set to June 30, students in “pre-collection” still have until Aug. 29 to pay their debt off.
These notices have sparked hundreds of GoFundMes from Howard students who said they were left in the dark until now. On top of this, students like Makiah Goodman were notified that certain scholarships could not be applied to fulfill their balances, sparking even more confusion.
Goodman took to TikTok explaining how she reached out to the College of Arts and Sciences to see if there were any emergency or left over funds she could pull from. Instead, she received a not-so-helpful email.
“As of June 30, 2025, both the Bursar and Financial Aid Offices have discontinued the processing of college-level scholarship submissions for the FA24-SPR25 semesters,” the email read. “This is a university-wide mandate that applies to all colleges and schools.” The 19-year-old has since posted a GoFundMe to help pay off her debt.
Others like Kimora Hughes, a junior at Howard, told NBC Washington she paid her tuition through a loan, but the university claimed they never got it.
“There’s no way Howard never received this, but I have the email of the loan being approved,” Hughes said. “It’s just been extremely stressful, one, because I feel like the people in our offices are not communicating amongst each other,” she continued.
It boils down to discrepancies in communication between the university and the student body. Now, a small group of students organized to start the “Whose Howard Is It?” protest, demanding the resignation of several Howard officials, full transparency from the administration and more financial assistance. The movement has 1,500 followers and it’s only growing.
With all the confusion and controversy swarming the Howard community, the school released an official statement. “We recognize the impact of these issues on our students and acknowledge the corns some students have expressed regarding unresolved account matters,” the university stated before denying allegations of theft and embezzlement. “We encourage all members of our community to engage constructively and to refrain from making false or unfounded allegations regarding the misuse of University funds.”
On Wednesday (July 23), Howard announced that of the 1,000 students with outstanding balances, half have been resolved.
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