Posted on 03/26/2014 7:18:27 AM PDT by YourAdHere
With a mountain of debt and less than three dozen remaining students, Morris Brown College in Atlanta may be reconsidering its refusal last year to sell its 37-acre campus to the city, according to media reports.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported in February that the school sought a bankruptcy courts approval to retain a real estate broker and pursue the sale of its campus. It was unclear how that sale would affect the colleges handful of remaining students and its continued operation.
The historically Black institution was founded in 1881, but was crippled in 2003 when it lost its accreditation after an investigation revealed two top officials embezzled millions in student financial aid and redirected it to other purposes.
Attendance plummeted as thousands of students sought an education elsewhere; according to a recent profile by American Public Medias Marketplace, the school currently boasts just 35 students attending classes at a campus which is largely boarded up.
The Journal-Constitution reported the school rebuffed a $9.7 million offer by the city last year that would have absolved the school of more than $35 million in debt. The newspaper indicated that the city could potentially sell or lease portions of the property to other groups, including two local churches, while still allowing Morris Brown space to operate.
However, the Journal-Constitution reported that the school may have changed its mind, after an open records request revealed that Morris Brown officials contacted Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed in early March to gauge the citys interest in renewing talks on a deal.
The school sits near an area targeted for revitalization, including a planned new stadium for the Atlanta Falcons.
Let me be very clear in my thinking about Morris Brown. Theres getting ready to be a $1.2 billion investment on that corridor, Reed told the Journal-Constitution. It makes sense for the city to control a strategic asset to be developed with the strength of the community in mind.
Morris Brown professor Makisha Funderburke is among the handful of educators who remain, and told Marketplace that she teaches without pay to help the college stay alive.
I just think Morris Brown should be given a chance, she said.
Corruption in another black-run institution... seems to be endemic. Oh well, black people have been winking at corruption since some genius first uttered the phrase "stick it to the man". It will never change.
yes... absolutely disgusting... to bring down a 120-year old institution... what happened with the perps?
There used to be a tv show about a black college (which did admit white applicants). What was that called? I actually liked the show.
i did a little digging... she used federal dollars—student grants and pell grants—to pay the University’s debts... of course, the grants were for students, but the students were not eligible because they were no longer at the school, or they were part-time students... she did not actually profit from the embezzled funds... aye, aye, aye...
do you mean, "A Different World?" it was a spin-off of "The Cosby Show."
Yep!
I second it. There are more college opportunities.
“A Different World”, the Cosby Show spin-off.
At my parish there is a family or a small group of families who have come from Nigeria. Across town, there is a thriving Ghanian community.
probably. It was wholesome enough to be Cosby-related.
I hate to break it to you, but all black people aren’t the same color regardless of the amount of racial mixing you seem to perceive. I used to live in Namibia, and if you thought that Khoisan, Ovambo, Himba, and Kovango people looked anything alike, you’d need to get your eyes checked. These people run the range from extremely dark skin to folks that are almost paler than me - and I’m of Scot descent. And that doesn’t even include mixed race people like Bastars and Coloureds.
A Different World, spin-off from Cosby Show when one of the Huxtable daughters went off to college. Loved that show.
These colleges have lost their reason for existing, as legal segregation was ended decades ago. Sounds as if they have trouble competing based on their own merits, the quality of their own academic programs, etc.
And it has to be hard to recruit a talented student body. Black students can attend any college nowadays. Odds are that the historically black colleges are getting less academically qualified students, the ones left over, who couldn’t get in anywhere else.
i used to watch it too... i liked it... in the early 90s...
Do the State still funnel money into this facility?
Is that a woman trying to be a guy, or a guy trying to be a woman?
It is religion, culture and education that determine a society’s values. They are not inborn. The fact that many Americans are mixed race can do nothing to change them, white or black. Only education in the scriptures and individual surrender to God can change a person’s heart.
It is religion, culture and education that determine a society’s values. They are not inborn. The fact that many Americans are mixed race can do nothing to change them, white or black. Only education in the scriptures and individual surrender to God can change a person’s heart.
Africa is not uniformly black, and there are precious few African-Americans with any blood at all from Kenya, since it faces the opposite shore of Africa from the Atlantic slave trade. (However, Arab traders certainly DID penetrate deeply into Kenya.)
Most slaves came from West Africa, sold by Arab conquerers. There certainly is, however, much European blood among modern “African”-Americans.
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