What do you expect SACS to do four days after the report was issued?
Longer term, would any of you advocate SACS pulling UNC's accreditation, thereby throwing
every current UNC student's financial aid out the widow? Here's what SACS has in its arsenal:
1. Watch List--in other words, we hears some shady stuff is going on, but we have a process.
2. Probation -- We've done an investigation and we think you've got a problem. Fix it or else.
3. Revocation of accreditation - Your school is so far gone we will now destroy you. All your current students will likely transfer. All federal aid will disappear. Every grant you've got will be revoked. And all your alum will spend the rest of their lives explaining to potential employers why they have a degree from an unaccredited institution.
A few years ago Morris Brown in Atlanta got revocation--a historically Black school that was facing financial collapse. Its enrollment fell to 50 students. It is now barely operating (and
selling off assets to keep the lights on).
SACS has its problems, but is is unreasonable to characterize this as the "comfy chair"--watch list is about the only immediate response that SACS can make prior to pulling together a formal team to review the UNC report.
My bet is on probation, especially since some heads are going to roll. No way they let an athletic scandal permanently cripple a major research university that otherwise has a excellent reputation.
