Howard University Reveals Truth Behind Fired Employees

By Micha Green, AFRO Washington, D.C. Editor, [email protected]

The Howard University financial aid scandal continues to unfold after the firing of six employees, student protests, the suing of the institution by Tyrone Hankerson Jr., who an anonymous, now deleted post, claimed was a student embezzler. The latest update is the school revealed the amount of money stolen.

On April 9, Howard University released a report detailing how $369,000 was misused by six financial aid workers who were subsequently fired.  The report explained how during a routine assessment of the university’s financial transactions in late 2016 irregularities were found regarding tuition remission and refunds. That discovery led to a May 2017 investigation by Howard University.

“Findings indicated most of the disbursement transactions deemed ‘irregular’ were posted to Banner, the software system that Howard uses for financial aid processing, by several now-former university employees,” the report said of the forensic investigation.

The school’s investigation found “that six employees demonstrated egregious violations of their responsibility as stewards of University resources,” resulting in the misappropriation of $369,000.

“In total, it was determined that from 2011-2016 these six individuals inappropriately awarded and/or received approximately $90,000 in tuition remission and $279,000 in University grants,” the report said.

As part of employee privacy rules, Howard University refuses to reveal names of the employees responsible for the thefts.  Tyrone Hankerson Jr., whose name was mentioned in an anonymous Medium post outing the scandal, was not included in Howard’s report. In an official court complaint, Hankerson accused Grant Grundy, a former financial aid student worker, of being the author of the Medium post.

Since the firing of the employees last year and the nationwide coverage of the financial aid scandal, Howard has continued the investigation, hired a financial aid consulting firm, Third Coast Higher Education and met with the U.S. Department of Education last Wednesday to ensure the school meets requirements in order to continue receiving federal funding according to the Washington Post.

“Howard University is committed to uncovering any impropriety in the administration of university-provided financial aid and federal student aid, to remediating all problems identified during this investigation, and to maintaining a robust compliance program to prevent any inappropriate dealings in the administration of financial aid,” Howard’s President Wayne A.I. Frederick said in a written statement.

The Washington Post reported in the past three years, the inspector general’s office has investigated approximately 40 cases of institutions and college officials misappropriating funds allotted for student aid, resulting in various punishments including settling out of court or criminal prosecution.

Before the anonymous Medium post outing the scandal, Howard was not going to go public with the investigation. Yet, once the money misuse became national news, the institution decided to be transparent in efforts to correct the issue and further inform and improve Howard’s community.