A private foundation with ties to Shelton State Community College, in Tuscaloosa, Ala., spent more than $560,000 to build a home for the college’s president, Richard Rogers, who is involved in a state and federal investigation.

The Shelton State Community College Foundation’s executive director, Lewis Drummond, said the foundation had built the 4,500-square-foot house in 2004 as an investment, according to The Birmingham News. The college pays the foundation $500 a month, in addition to Mr. Rogers’s $12,000 annual housing allowance, which goes to the foundation. But the foundation’s mortgage payments on the home are about $3,000 a month.

The revelation comes at a time when the state’s colleges and the foundations tied to them are already under fire for possible ethics violations and criminal wrongdoing. State Rep. Bryant Melton, a former employee of Shelton State, has agreed to plead guilty to funneling $85,000 in legislative grants to the Alabama Fire College Foundation and using most of the money to pay gambling debts (The Chronicle, July 10). Mr. Melton said in his plea agreement that he had discussed his plan with Mr. Rogers, according to the News.

Critics have also raised questions about possible nepotism by Roy W. Johnson, chancellor of the two-year-college system. Mr. Johnson, his wife, his children, and their spouses earned more than $560,000 last year from jobs in the system (The Chronicle, May 22 and June 14).