After Saint Augustine’s University lost accreditation this week, the school’s leaders are appealing to alumni to fundraise $1 million they say they’ll need for a lawsuit against their former accreditor.
On Monday night, about 200 SAU alumni joined a Zoom call with interim university president Marcus Burgess, board chair Brian Boulware, and trustees Sophie Gibson and Claude Tolbert. Burgess seemed eager to repair the distrustful, sometimes adversarial relationship between alumni and the school’s current administration and board.
“You’re on this call today because you are concerned, you’re scared, you’re worried, and you’re probably damn mad as hell,” Burgess said. “I am as well.”
A group of alumni sued the university in 2024 in an (unsuccessful) attempt to reconstitute the board. Alumni told INDY and The Assembly earlier this year that they’re wary of donating to their alma mater because “it’s like giving to a black hole.”
Burgess, who has been SAU’s interim president since December 2023, framed the call as an opportunity to be transparent and get the SAU community on the same page. True to his word, he shared new details that the university has equivocated on in the past. According to Burgess, SAU’s current debts exceed $47 million. (That figure does not include a $20 million default judgement that the school is contesting.) Enrollment is about 53 students. In the most recent application cycle, 127 students were admitted, though Burgess did not say how many of those plan to attend in the fall, when SAU will be online-only.
According to an itemized list Burgess shared, SAU’s top creditors right now are Gothic Ventures, to whom the university owes $15.8 million, and the IRS, to whom it owes $10 million. SAU owes money to at least 30 other entities including the NC Department of Revenue, the NC Department of Commerce, and multiple banks, law firms, and contractors.
SAU’s 100-acre campus property is collateral for the Gothic Ventures loan and several IRS tax liens, meaning SAU could lose it if it defaults on those payments. The land is by far the university’s most valuable asset, worth about $200 million. Burgess said SAU plans to “not sell off…but leverage” it to get out of debt.
“The first thing that we are trying to do is to make sure that we can refinance the debt and have a single partner that takes on all of that effective debt,” Tolbert elaborated during the call. “A ground lease where you provide a developer-slash-partner the opportunity to build on top of the land is the most effective and the most straightforward way that we can take that land asset and turn it into meaningful financial resources for the university without ceding control and without losing too much of the land.”
Burgess also shed some light on the rationale behind SAU’s planned lawsuit against its former accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). The goal of the suit, which SAU has not yet filed, is to temporarily block SACSCOC’s decision from taking effect until the university can find another accreditor. They’re eyeing the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, or TRACS, which has fewer requirements to join than SACSCOC.
“We have been working with our constituents at the Department of Education … to try to get permission to seek TRACS accreditation,” Burgess said.
SAU has not offered a rationale for why a judge should uphold an injunction against SACSCOC.
SACSCOC representative Rae Borden told INDY that the accreditor cannot comment on SAU’s planned litigation because “we have not received anything officially indicating that they’re planning to sue.”
“Arbitration is concluded, and there’s nothing more for us to do until if and when we receive something else from the institution,” Borden said.
Like SACSCOC, TRACS requires its member institutions to demonstrate financial stability. SAU is working hard to remedy years of financial mismanagement, Burgess told alumni.
“You cannot go three years of audits not being done and not have issues,” he said. “You cannot not pay your vendors and there not be issues. You cannot, since 2019, not pay your payroll taxes and there not be issues. You cannot evade federal grants and not use them for the purpose that they were deemed for and there not be issues.”
Burgess said that during a previous administration, SAU switched providers for its electronic bookkeeping and its records of $33 million dollars worth of transactions. The school had to reconstruct those records in order to complete its annual financial audit. He also said that before he arrived, SAU allegedly defrauded its own students by printing out their tuition refund checks but not delivering them, so that the school’s online system showed the checks had been paid out when they hadn’t.
“We try not to point fingers, but … we were put at a huge disadvantage,” Burgess said.
INDY asked SAU to elaborate on the past financial mismanagement Burgess described but university officials declined to comment.
SAU’s leaders are sticking to the message that their predecessors made mistakes, but they are acting responsibly in the school’s best interests. Boulware made the same argument earlier this year after a chorus of alumni, former employees, and former trustees called for his resignation based on accusations of misconduct and overreach.
“There will be changes at the university within the coming weeks, including the board,” Boulware told alumni on Monday. “I just want everyone to know that everyone is disappointed, heartbroken about this news. We’ve given 110 percent of our time and resources to prevent this situation.”
“There’s going to be a light at the end of this tunnel,” Gibson told alumni.
“And it’s not a train,” Burgess said.
Chloe Courtney Bohl is a Report for America corps member. Follow her on Bluesky or reach her at [email protected]. Comment on this story at [email protected].