Howard University

About Howard University

Howard University (HU) is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian university located in Washington, D.C., United States.

Established on March 2, 1867 under a charter enacted by Congress and approved by President Andrew Johnson, the college was named after General Oliver O. Howard who was commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau and the college's third president. A historically black university, the college currently ranks 96th among national universities in the U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Colleges 2008" rankings. Howard University is the number-one producer of African American Ph.D.s in the United States. It is often known as the Black Harvard.

Howard was established by a charter in 1867, and much of its early funding came from endowment, private benefaction, and tuition. An annual congressional appropriation administered by the Secretary of the Interior funded the school.[citation needed] Today, it is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund and is partially funded by the US Government, which gives approximately $235 million annually. From its outset, it was nonsectarian and open to people of both sexes and all races. Howard has graduate schools of pharmacy, law, medicine, dentistry and divinity, in addition to the undergraduate program. The current enrollment (as of 2003) is approximately 11,000, including 7,000 undergraduates. The university's football homecoming activities serve as one of the premier annual events in Washington. [10]