An Episcopal college founded during Reconstruction to educate formerly enslaved people is appealing a decision to revoke its accreditation, and faces a formidable series of financial challenges.
Saint Augustine’s University in Raleigh, North Carolina, is a historically Black college of about 1,200 students, co-founded in 1867 by then-Bishop of North Carolina Thomas Atkinson. Most of its students were sent home earlier this year to continue their learning online because of boiler problems in multiple buildings, according to local news reports.
In February, Saint Augustine reportedly missed the first of two biweekly payrolls, depriving its employees of their salaries for at least a month. Also in February, the IRS filed tax liens totaling nearly $8 million, alleging that the school failed to pay taxes it had withheld from its employees’ paychecks for nearly three years, beginning in late 2020.
In March, the school entered arbitration with its accrediting agency, seeking to reverse an earlier decision to strip Saint Augustine’s of its accreditation — which would prevent students from receiving financial aid from the federal government. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) posted an update citing a lack of compliance with several of the agency’s “Principles of Accreditation,” but did not list any specifics.
The school remains accredited during the arbitration, but must pay all travel and other costs associated with the arbitration, with an initial installment of $15,000. A SACSCOC public relations representative did not return a call seeking comment.
At Saint Augustine’s, calls to two communications officers and the interim president went straight to voicemail, and were not returned.
The chief financial officer that the school hired with fanfare in January apparently has left under unexplained circumstances, according to a local news report. Raleigh’s ABC11 also quoted Interim President Marcus Burgess saying that while most students are studying remotely, about 120 to 160 remain on campus because they live too far away or have local jobs. Local churches are pitching in to feed them, since the school no longer offers campus dining.
Burgess was appointed interim president after the previous president, Christine McPhail, was fired by the board of trustees in November for unexplained reasons. She became president in 2021, succeeding her husband, Irving Pressley McPhail, who died from Covid only a few months into his presidency.
In December 2023, the school launched a Falcon Pride Initiative with a goal of raising $5 million in support of Saint Augustine’s. To date it has raised $277,000.
Saint Augustine’s is the older of two HBCUs affiliated with the Episcopal Church. Voorhees University in South Carolina was founded in 1897.
