Howard ROTC Students Report Feeling Misled Over Reduced Funding

By Damenica Ellis

The amount of scholarships given by Howard’s Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) has been reduced due to depleted funding from the United States Army Cadet Command. The result left some ROTC students feeling misled over scholarship guarantees, they said.

Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Coe, department chair and professor of military science at Howard said the program is lessening the number of scholarships available for students because more officers are being commissioned into the Army than what has been required.

Coe said scholarships given to ROTC students are funded through the scholarship fund from the U.S. Army Cadet Command. The Army Cadet Command is given money to provide scholarships to students across the United States. Within that pool, Howard’s ROTC is allocated a portion of the money. The amount of money allocated, however, was not confirmed in time for publication.

The university’s mission requirement, Coe said, is to contract 15 students and commission 12 second lieutenants into the Army every year. The requirement, along with the costs associated with attending the school, determine how many scholarship opportunities students will receive on campus.

He explained that if the graduating classes of ‘24, ‘25 and ‘26 have a large number of officers commissioned into the Army, the groups graduating in ‘27 and ‘28 will see less potential for scholarship opportunities.

This scholarship reduction developed last semester, Coe said.

The U.S. Army Cadet Command could not provide additional statements on the reduction of funding at this time “due to funding decisions having not fully been decided at the highest Army echelon.”

The Army ROTC awards scholarships that cover full tuition along with monthly stipends of $420. While the number of scholarships will look different, ROTC stipends are not changing, according to Coe. Contracted students whether they are on scholarship or not will continue to receive a monthly stipend.

The U.S. Army ROTC advertised on its website that its program can help pay for college tuition with its full-ride scholarships and that it is one of the largest providers of merit-based college scholarships in the United States.

While ROTC scholarships are lessening, students still associate ROTC with scholarships and some students expressed that ROTC recruitment continued to use scholarships as a way to receive commitment from students.

Two Howard students said they told recruiters that they were interested in joining ROTC because of the full-ride scholarships provided by the Army. They both claimed that these scholarships were verbally guaranteed to them.

Coe said, “Scholarships are never promised.”

Ka’Darius McNair,  a junior television and film major, said around Thanksgiving he went to the ROTC office to ask about his contracting when the scholarship recruitment administration told him they ran out of funds. Later, he said the head military instructor and lieutenant confirmed they were indeed out of funds.

McNair created a GoFundMe because he was not able to cover his tuition. In a Dec. 6 Instagram post, McNair said that the news of his lack of funding “has been heartbreaking, but I’m determined not to let it derail my dreams.”

McNair is a first-generation college student. Coming to Howard, he said he made an agreement with his parents that they would help financially for the first two years, and for the last two he would have to handle paying for tuition himself.

McNair expressed his love for Howard in the post, saying that it is more than just a school for him but a place that built his foundation as a future leader, creative and advocate for change. He said he doesn’t wish to defame his school, he just hopes to bring awareness and transparency from ROTC.

McNair’s GoFundMe raised $1,695 of his $20,000 goal as of Feb. 16. This money along with a scholarship he received from the Thurgood Marshall College Fund allowed him to pay for one semester of school.

McNair said he posted about his new financial challenges not only to raise money for himself but to inspire others to be resilient and to bring awareness to a situation that at least one other student is also experiencing.

Another student in ROTC, who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation, said that they were also promised a scholarship.

Both students joined ROTC late their sophomore year, speaking with recruiters around late March to early April, explicitly telling them they wanted to join because they needed money for school.

“I initially joined because I wanted the scholarship, that was my reason for joining and I made that clear when I spoke with Ms. Finney, who is our POC (Point of Contact),” the student said.

McNair said ROTC offered him a one-time payment of $5,000 in place of the scholarship that would cover full tuition for his last two years of school. If he accepted this offer, he would still have to serve between six to eight years in the Army after graduating.

The student under the condition of anonymity received the same offer.

“In December, once I went home, I had got an ultimatum and they were like, ‘You can contract, but we don’t have any more scholarships and we can offer you a bonus because you went to basic camp,’” they said.

Both students said they qualified to be contracted and receive a full tuition scholarship, being medically fit and passing the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT).

Coe explained that this is common in the program because they try to have every student who joins hit all the requirements, even though the scholarship isn’t guaranteed, in the event that a scholarship becomes available from “higher headquarters.”

The two students said they were unaware that the scholarship wasn’t guaranteed when going through the process.

“They basically told us that we were going to get a scholarship but we couldn’t get our scholarship until we finished basic camp,” the unnamed student said. “And then once we got back from basic camp, they were like, ‘You can’t get your scholarship until you get medically qualified.’”

McNair said, “[The lieutenant and recruitment] already knew that they didn’t have any funds to offer me, but withheld that information to keep me in ROTC.”

Coe denied that scholarships were ever promised to students joining the program.

“Even if the money was flowing in, we never promised that someone will get a scholarship, just because there’s so many variables we don’t control,” he said.

Coe said that he and the ROTC recruiting officer are always aware of finances. The recruiting officer has a meeting every month with higher headquarters going over each student that is not contracted and doesn’t have a scholarship, according to Coe.

Along with his post, McNair posted a video on Instagram on Dec. 10.

In this video, he said, “When I joined ROTC, I committed wholeheartedly believing in the opportunities it promised. What I didn’t know is that at the beginning of the semester, they ran out of funds. Yet, I was allowed to put my time and dedication into a program I thought would secure my future.”

ROTC asked McNair to take down his video. “They said that they did not want me soliciting funds on behalf of the Army, which I feel as though they didn’t watch my video, because we watched my video, that’s not what my video was about,” McNair said.

Coe said that legally, he should not mention the Army or be in uniform while promoting the GoFundMe.

“He can do a GoFundMe request if it’s 100 percent just him with no ties to the Army,” he said.

McNair feels like ROTC asked him to remove the video to silence his story.

“I was wrongly done, and now you’re trying to punish me for letting it be known that I was done wrongly,” he said.

Since McNair was told about not being able to receive the scholarship, he said he felt that ROTC’s administration was “nonchalant” and “inconsiderate.”

“Hopefully he can find some kind of financial option, but we never promised him a scholarship,” Coe said.

ROTC’s administration was unable to provide proof that they communicated scholarships were not guaranteed in time for publication. The student speaking under conditions of anonymity said they wished the program simply said that the scholarships were not guaranteed earlier because they would have pursued other opportunities to pay for college.

They added that they took six extra credits, giving them a total of 21 credits, in the fall because of their ROTC commitment. They expressed that the heavy workload along with some weekends and early mornings dedicated to the program was not worth it.

“It just didn’t follow the values that were drilled into us,” the student said. “As hard as they are on us about timeliness and everything else, I feel like that was totally unprofessional of them.”