Posted by Opeyemi Olanrewaju None - HBCU Supporter
on August 04, 2004 at 17:07:30:
This is the summer before my senior year in high school, which means the application process is starting to roll. For the past year, I have been pumping up Howard University. It has the legacy, the affordable tuition and other factors such as African American peer support- which I believe can help African American students succeed to a higher degree than if they were attending majority white universities. However, there have always been doubts in my mind, and I sometimes believe I am being naive in my thinking process. I have been doing research on many of the colleges I will apply to, and Howard is has a bad "rap".
I found that Howard University is in an abysmal debt, offers low financial aids to its students, has trouble finding housing off campus, has a high crime rate in its "poor, run-down surrounding area" (Please do not attack me on these comments, they are not my words but some of my findings.) I am also constantly receiving negative comments from my people that I speak to that say �Howard is no longer the school it was in the past�, �Howard is a good school, but because it is a HBCU, you will have a disadvantage when you go out into the real world�, �The education is not up to par with other universities.�
Even though my defense of Howard University always included the two Rhodes scholars it has produced in the last three years, its Research I Library, its 85 percent retention rate, and the fact Howard has produced the most African American doctors and lawyers in the world, I am apprehensive to go there. I have visited the campus and have to agree that it is shameful compared to universities in the area like Georgetown and George Washington University. Another aspect that puzzles me is Howard�s low alumni financial contribution rate. With so many affluent alums, why does Howard University have a low percentage? These things, along with others have made me rethink if Howard is worth my four years� investment. I want to believe it is, but, as I said before, there are doubts in my mind.
I am open to all opinions, advice and anything else you might have to offer.
Thank you.