Howard University in Washington, D.C. has recently expanded its academic offerings to meet the high demand of students interested in an online education. According to the HBCU’s Office of Digital and Online Learning, Howard anticipates enrolling over 800 fully online students by the end of the 2025-2026 academic year.
Beginning in the upcoming fall 2025 semester, Howard will offer two new online graduate degrees: a fully online master of education degree in educational leadership and policy studies and a master of divinity degree, which will be the university’s first-ever hybrid-flexible (hy-flex) program.
“We are excited to launch our online master of education in educational leadership and policy studies, featuring two tracks based on national feedback,” said Shannon Waite, assistant professor at Howard’s School of Education. “One track focuses on education policy and advocacy for students interested in earning a degree, focusing on education policy to work in positions outside of a school building. We also offer greater flexibility for those pursuing school building administrator credentials in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia (DMV) area.”
“We are reimagining what the smallest but first of Howard’s 14 schools and colleges to launch a hy-flex program can do to revolutionize classroom instruction at an R1 HBCU,” said Kenyatta Gilbert, dean of Howard’s School of Divinity. “Over the last two decades, Protestant divinity schools and seminaries have experienced sharp declines in enrollment. Enlarging our capacity to reach our target audience with newly outfitted smart classrooms, increasing our regional, national, and global visibility and engagement with students, and advancing our mission of educating and forming academic and religious leaders to serve the Church and society excites me.”
The School of Education has also launched an online degree completion program to assist adult learners who have earned some college credit, but have not completed their bachelor’s degrees. Students with at least 60 college credit hours can now enroll at Howard to pursue a bachelor’s degree in human development. The interdisciplinary degree will prepare students to work in a wide-range of fields, including public policy, health services, and counseling.
