This weekend I was thinking about trouble at Guilford College, when a memory popped up: during my college years, a B- was not a bad grade.

Okay, it wasn’t great, especially if you were aiming at the honor roll or grad school.

But it was above a C; over the line (if just barely) into the upper tier of the scale.

That was then: now it’s another century —hell, another millennium. Things have changed.

What about, in 2025, a grade of BBB-?

It’s not an upgrade; not even a personal grade.

It’s a downgrade, which is given to (earned by?) your whole school.

It’s bad.

And that’s Guilford’s grade.

Wait, there’s more:

What professor or dean would be so presumptuous as to give an entire college such a grade?

None. A BBB-Minus is delivered from outside and not by some embittered liberal arts cabal.

The BBB-Minus comes from Standard & Poor’s (aka S&P). That’s a company in what some on campus airily dismiss as “the real world,” which grades the credit/ investment worthiness of countries, companies, and many colleges.

S&P’s investment grades start at AAA+. The lowest grade in this class is (wait for it), BBB. Then a BBB-Minus is a bit lower than that. And such a rating can be further nuanced as “stable” or “negative,” with obvious implications.

(Below the Bs, BTW you’re in S&P’s seedy “non-investment grade” — aka “junk bonds”– neighborhood: Remember these jingles: Crash your Cash in the Capitalist Casino” . . . and  When you Get to the Ds — Just Don’t”)

Last August, S&P graded Guilford as a BBB-Minus for credit; yes the very bottom of their list. And not for the first time. It also changed the rating from “stable” to “negative.”

This decision is very real to Guilford. The financial elephant in its rooms, according to a public report, is a big smelly load of debt, which the BBB-Minus rating makes harder to manage; plus a lingering “structural deficit” which was about $5 million dollars over last year.

ThIs debt burden and the stubborn deficit have caught the eye not only of S&P, but of the other overseer Guilford needs to worry about, the lugubriously-named Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges  (SACS).

Guilford is accredited by SACS. With its blessing comes eligibility to offer federal grants and loans to students; the feds’ money is much of the operational lifeblood for many (most?) colleges.

Like other higher powers, though, what SACS giveth, SACS can taketh away. Actual loss of accreditation is rare, but it does happen; and financial issues are a frequent cause. SACS specifies several (confusingly named) steps in a process toward such a grim fate, one of which is dubbed “continued in accreditation for Good Cause and placed on Probation.”

That awkward phrase almost sounds good, but it isn’t. In fact, it marks the next to last stop on the SACS highway to academic perdition.

On December 19, 2024, SACS issued a letter stating that Guilford had chugged its way into this next-to-last-before-expulsion probationary station. It would arrive at the end of the line by December of 2025; and that last stop is named Judgment Day.

Then SACS will have de-accreditation as a distinct option, unless Guilford’s leadership (whoever that might be) can make a convincing case that it is back in “compliance,”

The basis for the SACS missive was “noncompliance with a financial responsibility standard.” (Aka, the school’s deficit & debt load were still too big, as enrollment and income continued to lag, even after several rounds of frantic fundraising and much-protested staff and program cuts.)

To make matters even worse, another cloud has been gathering, not only over Guilford, but over hundreds of small U.S. Colleges: and here the official metaphor changes: it’s not a storm that’s approaching, but a cliff they’re headed for: the “Enrollment Cliff”: a steady, nearly nationwide decline in the number of college-age Americans over the next decade, reflecting a falling birthrate since the great crash of 2008. (More details on that here.)

Some schools are reportedly already feeling the impact of this shrinking pool of potential students. Elite schools will likely escape the crunch; but smaller ones, like Guilford are expected to be most adversely affected.

So here it all comes. After the BBB-MInus rating, the December SACS letter provoked urgent college Board meetings, which soon resulted in decisive action:

On Friday, January 3, 2025, they fired the president, Kyle Farmbry.

Farmbry had been there less than three years.

Farmbry’s departure was abrupt: the same day the Board announced he was “Stepping down,” Farmbry said in an email that January 3 was his last day.

Neither a successor nor a presidential search was announced; the college Board Chair, Jean Parvin Bordewich of Washington DC, will fill in as Acting President; another Board member will be Acting Chief Operating Officer.

This makeshift executive team extends a pattern of revolving door administration at Guilford: since 2001 it has six presidents: three official, two interim, and now an acting. Much of the tenure of these half-dozen was consumed with fending off financial shortfalls, taking flak for forced staff and program cuts, and searching for (financial) angels or some magic elixir which would bring flocks of new student crowding the campus again like in the glory days.

What’s head in the near term for Guilford? A letter from Board Chair Bordewitch spelled it out:

There will be difficult decisions as we align Guilford’s current expenses to its current revenue, and achieve compliance with SACSCOC accreditation standards related to financial responsibility and resources. We intend to make those decisions expeditiously to provide clarity for everyone who might be affected.

I am optimistic and excited about Guilford’s future — but first we must navigate out of our financial difficulties. . . .

I’ve read other statements like this from employers. Between the lines, I can hear the budget axe chopping, and the pink slips being spat out of the printer.They are not pleasant sounds.

But the alternative is unfolding barely an hour to the east, at St. Augustine’s University, a venerable HBCU in Raleigh founded in 1867.

The same day that Guilford was put on last-ditch probation, SACS dropped the hammer on St. Aug’s, as it is called, voting to remove it from their accreditation roster.

St. Aug. can appeal, so the decision is not quite final, but at the bottom line of its sentence are the same villains: they’re out of money and have shed all but a few hundred students. In most cases like this, loss of accreditation and federal funds means curtains.

Can Guilford, which traces its history back to 1837, escape a similar fate?

If I wrote an upbeat scenario predicting that, the grade it would get in a fantasy writing class wouldn’t be much better than — BBB-Minus.

Best of luck, Friends.