Howard University is a private, coeducational, nonsectarian, historically black university located in Washington, D.C., United States.
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] It was named for founder Oliver Otis Howard who was commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau and who later served as a president of the school. 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 is approximately 11,000, including 7,000 undergraduates. The university’s football homecoming activities serve as one of the premier annual events in Washington. (more…)