January 13, 2009

North Carolina University to Pay $1.1-Million for Loans at Unauthorized Campus

North Carolina Central University has agreed to pay the U.S. Department of Education more than $1.1-million for federal loans taken out by students at an unauthorized satellite campus the institution operated in Georgia, The News & Observer reported. According to the newspaper, the repayment plan was announced today at a meeting of the executive committee of the university’s Board of Trustees.

The university ran the campus, in classrooms at a megachurch in a suburb of Atlanta, for four years, without getting its trustees’ approval or notifying its accreditor, before shutting it down last summer. The university’s accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Commission on Colleges, had raised questions about the program and the validity of degrees awarded to 25 students at the satellite campus, but ultimately the accreditor decided to recognize the degrees. —Charles Huckabee

Comments

1. For your information

   — ejack1152@aol.com    Jan 14, 12:19 PM    #

2. Let me get this straight: the university opened a branch campus without the permission of its board and without notifying its accrediting agency? In view of things like this is it any wonder that people outside higher education question our ability to keep our house in order? And what punishment – if any – fell upon the administrators who were so bold as to do such a thing?

   — Socrates    Jan 14, 12:49 PM    #

3. Yes, exactly. Were the administrators involved in this fraud fired? Lacking further information it seems they should have been and held financially responsible for setting up a program without Board approval.

   The unauthorized program ran for 4 years?? Who else was asleep at the switch?

   — Gustavo Mellander    Jan 14, 02:35 PM    #

4. Fired? No, the then Chancellor of N.C. Central, James Ammons, was “promoted” to president of FAMU, and FAMU took no action after learning of the scheme. The beneficiary of the unauthorized campus was himself a trustee of NC Central, Pastor Eddie Long. Pastor Long’s church was the home of the out-of-state campus. No red flags there. And NO PERSON was found guilty of any wrong-doing. Just a series of well-intended “missteps” I guess. The fact that a Georgia church received unauthorized funding to run an unauthorized campus and never had to return a penny to N.C. Central has been overlooked. Did those 25 students receive a quality education taught out of a megachurch without meeting any accreditation standards? Why of course they did. The SACS folks said so.

   — Marie    Jan 14, 03:11 PM    #

5. To follow up with Marie’s accurate assessment of this situation, I have a serious question. Is it possible that, because it’s a HBCU serving a primarily black student population in the worst part of Durham, NCCU gets a bit of a pass for this (and some of its other recent indiscretions – embezzlement by leaders, letting its accreditation lapse, etc)? Would other non-HBCUs get treated with such gentle-handedness for being such a mess? And all the while, money is being pumped into that place like CRAZY – all you have to do is go by campus sometime and look at all the new buildings, programs, etc… Does this situation bother anyone?

   — Bob    Jan 15, 12:23 PM    #

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