You can’t tell what’s going on because the article is written so poorly. Pretty ridiculous
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Told you they were going in asking for a handout from taxpayers…these schools need to close
Whats wrong with a college asking for funding? That’s basically the standard process for most institutions. Why does a historical black school need to close??? Please tell.
Due to the media and traditional American xenophobia, there is a lot of animosity towards certain demographics of people right now.
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Shaw is doing fine, isn’t it? Especially if they’re able to monetize their real estate holdings with the big rezoning.
St. Aug’s… yeah it’s a mess.
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It’s standard for public colleges and institutions. Those universities are held to strict standards on spend and have to keep their books open and available for the government.
The kinds of funding private universities typically get are grants for students (Pell Grants, etc.), research funding, or through certain initiatives. Not to stay afloat because they’re failing.
Both Shaw and St. Augustines are private colleges. They’re not held to the same standards and it will absolutely not be due to racism if they don’t get funding.
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You think taxpayers (city taxpayers only BTW. No way in hell State taxpayers would agree to this) should just give money with no strings to 2 private colleges that appear to be unable to manage their own finances??
Should we also give Meredith, William Peace, & Campbell blank checks?? Just the city of Raleigh taxpayers of course…
SA & Shaw have an existential crisis. What they ‘should’ do is to sell at least parts of their assets to private enterprise (not the City) ensuring highest & best cash flow…this said, doing so probably will just prolong the inevitable.
Shaw ‘may’ graduate 50 students per year. SA has less than 200 students in total. The long-term math doesn’t work.
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This thread is usually a shitstorm, but if you read the article it says they’re pushing for something similar to the racial equity initiative in Charlotte, which resulted in an $83million commitment to that school’s fundraising through the City/Mayor driving fundraising efforts for that and other equity projects.
That program exists and is not just a wholesale grant of City funds. Raleigh doesn’t grant other institutions funds but tbf they also dedicate other indirect resources to them in services and initiatives.
It is certainly a choice to equate St Augs, which has a lot of existential problems, with Shaw, which may only have some generic problems shared by other similarly situated schools. I don’t want to wade in there because I feel icky rooting for an HBCU to fail, even if it’s due to self-imposed issues. Some people apparently don’t have that issue.
However, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to think that a healthy HBCU in the core of downtown can help downtown as a whole by spurring investment, housing, jobs, tax base, and other nice things that people generally like. That’s probably a better outcome than killing that school and selling it for parts, which would blow a hole in the part of downtown that can least afford it, and then hoping for a miracle replacement.
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Especially a university who’s already in financial trouble, purchasing a new astroturf football field and then doesn’t pay the installation company. Which then proceeded to legal action where the company can recover that money through a forceable lean and take some of their land. A couple weeks later CIAA suspended their football season, these are insanely misguided financial decisions.
This should be the last institution to get more money, especially from taxpayers.
CIAA suspends Saint Augustine’s athletics for 2024-25 :: WRALSportsFan.com
Saint Augustine’s University’s land could be in jeopardy due to unpaid bills
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PS it’s not really clear what the context was, but the quote by MAB that the city needs land to build affordable housing strikes me as… not entirely true? The city owns a staggering amount of property downtown that is being underutilized. Maybe I’m wrong but I’d think the lack of funding to build is the real hurdle.
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I don’t think Shaw has had any financial issues, and in fact recently has negotiated some upzones of their land that they can use as leverage to sell to private developers, further integrating their campus into the city fabric. I would welcome City funds to keep them prosperous.
St. Aug, on the other hand, is absolutely mired with financial issues and extremely obvious, blatant, and downright corrupt mismanagement of funds. I would NOT want to see the City offer them any funding to just continue their long, tortorous decline to inevitable failure.
Shaw and St. Augustines may both be HBCUs, but that is where the comparison ends.
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That bit about Shaw’s 50 person graduating class led me to look into it, because that’s obviously unsustainable. Looks like enrollment is finally ticking back up post-Covid and has some solid quality metrics growth across the intake.
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I live very close to Shaw’s campus, and anecdotally, there’s definitely been a lot more college students milling about the neighborhood this fall than in previous years…it’s great to see and definitely suggests the university is continuing to improve its outlook
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Well, for one thing, neither of these schools are public universities. They are both private. I am not sure what the standard protocol &/or precedent is for private institutions asking for public money from the city.
Is this a normal thing for private institutions to ask? When I asked Google about any financial relationships between Duke and Durham, it came back with how money flows in the opposite direction and toward the community, not to the university. The city of Durham has streamlined zoning processes, and made things more flexible for the university. I’d fully support mimicking that arrangement in Raleigh.
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Shaw already got most of their land rezoned to ~40 stories, problem is nothing pencils at their projects every time they try to partner or sell of some parcels.
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Are they overly optimistic in what they’re asking or is it a general market downswing?
You can’t build office right now, multi-family is oversupplied. Building up 40 stories takes considerable capital and a lot of groups are more interested in other areas of the city.
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im not sure if this is a salvageable way to save st augs and others…it seems I read a week or so ago that unc is even trimming the fat on some curriculums? a few targeted programs related to downtown economics and possibly some stuff at rtp? i know the tech schools do a lot of that already.
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Since Wake Tech is constantly expanding, instead of hitting up the city for help, St. Augs should consider a partnership deal with those folks instead. “Hey we got the buildings, you hold the classes, everybody wins!”. I bet Wake Tech would consider it, seeing as they are always adding on, they have nothing Inside the Beltine (other than the health campus at Sunnybrook), and hey, cheap rent on buildings that already have classrooms in them.
(Not an HBCU, but Salem College in WS just announced an agreement with Forsyth Tech, so partnerships between private colleges and community colleges are always possible.)
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To add to this, it is prudent to realize that climbing enrollment numbers are not a true gauge of an institution’s effectiveness. Here are numbers that matter:
- Shaw University’s graduation rate is 16%, which places it in the bottom 5% of institutions.
- The 4-year graduation rate is 9%, which is in the bottom 10%.
- The 6-year graduation rate is 16%, which places Shaw University in the bottom 5%.
- The retention rate is 58%, which falls within the bottom 15% of schools.
The institution is just not very effective in its present state and hasn’t been for a while.
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Yikes. That’s terrible. Thanks for the info.