There is some push in that direction. Things like art majors taking marketing & accounting classes so they can actually run their small business. I think that combination of humanities and technical skills makes the most sense, and produces the best citizens.
This another crisis my field, the humanities, faces is the push to get students out as quickly as possible. Student loans will only pay for classes that are part of your program of study, so you can’t add that class you were always curious about - urban design 101, Latin, or photography. Many people just see college as a giant white collar VoTech. Everyone is after credentials, and few are after an education. I hope this changes, or at least the collapse holds off till I retire.
After about two years of fighting for its accreditation, Saint Augustine’s University will get a final decision from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC).
The accrediting board will vote on whether to fully reaffirm the school or revoke its membership during its annual meeting, which starts tomorrow.
They lost their accreditation. They are appealing and will maintain it during the appeal process, but doesn’t bode well for them. This will be the 2nd time in the last two years they’ve lost accreditation.
At some point in life, you’ve got to know when to move on. Create a plan to deal with the assets sensitively so the financial firm doesn’t just get all the land for peanuts, get the current students sorted at Shaw or Wake Tech, and go out with dignity and a community legacy.
What does this mean?
The vote to remove Saint Augustine’s from membership is not considered a final action.
The removal from membership would only be finalized if the University chose not to pursue an appeal. Since Saint Augustine’s plans to appeal the decision, the university will remain accredited now until the final decision of the appeals committee and, if necessary, an arbitration panel.
This means that SAU’s December 2024 and May 2025 graduates will receive degrees from an accredited institution.
well I, for one, am just SHOCKED!!!1!!!
So while I’m definitely not an SAU booster and am pretty skeptical of this whole thing, reading the article, it sounds like they have everything to keep the accreditation except some financial stuff. And that has been sorted out with these new loans, layoffs, etc. So when they appeal in February, it seems reasonable that they could keep their accreditation and this is basically over. Except that they have to pay back all that money LOL…
Bloomberg: Loan With 24% Interest Is ‘Necessary Evil’ for Black College to Stay Afloat
until they lose it again next year…
50 Plus 1 would help the university pay off existing debts, including 50% of accrued and unpaid interest and the prepayment premium on its Gothic Ventures loan. It’s not clear what parts of the land the university would be leasing.
I don’t know if that comes out of the lease deal or if that is extra on top, but the Gothic Ventures loan appears to be under control.
a 6% decline in freshmen enrollment this year nationally is not a good sign for St Aug’s or any struggling school. They are facing an enormous climb out of this deep trough. Frankly, I would be considering exit strategies at this point.
I can’t believe it only fell off 6%.
I think he was saying college enrollment overall was down nationally 6% and that obviously won’t help St Augustine’s.
Apparently St Augustine’s was down 70% YoY.
Its does come on top of lower numbers ever year since the great pandemic shutdown.
We had a record frosh class here, so did Bama, among others. It is as interesting what schools are growing as those that are in trouble.
In trouble are small hbscu & liberal arts (UNCA, before the hurricane) growing are a lot if big state schools, esp in the South, with big greek systems.
Few states have an out of state enrollment cap like NC, but few states support higher ed like NC still does. The Penn St system gets about 14% of their funding from the commonwealth. Alabama schools get about 35%.
But Bama is about 50-51% out of state. I dont know the current NC funding.
NC State’s 2024 budget was 30% state funded.
But there part of the UNC system though.
Yes, but I dont see how that relates to the fact that 30% of NC States 2024 budget was state funded.
Thanks. That is somewhat lower than I’ of guessed. I wonder how that varies across the state campuses, given how exspensive reasearch campuses are, as a rule.
It must be noted that enrollment numbers are not a true gauge of an institution’s effectiveness. Here are Shaw’s numbers on a more granular scale. I posted something similar to this back in October.
- Graduation rate is a paltry 16%, which places it in the bottom 5% of institutions.
- The 4-year graduation rate is only 9%, which is in the bottom 10%.
- The 6-year graduation rate is just 16%, which places Shaw University in the bottom 5% of all schools.
- The retention rate is only 58%, which falls within the bottom 15% of schools.
It is obviously a sinking ship and has been for a while too.
This really is too bad. But it seems like the numbers speak for themselves. Not good.