Alabama’s Oldest Private Black College Dealing with Financial Crisis, Facing ‘Hard Decisions’

By Savannah Tryens-Fernandes | stryens-fernandes@al.com Talladega College is trying to avoid the fate of Birmingham-Southern College as it navigates its own financial “crisis.” The school, which is the oldest private historically Black college in Alabama, said it is in “significant debt” after a few years of the payroll increasing while enrollment decreased. Talladega Board of Directors Chairwoman Rica Lewis-Payton announced a strategic plan to ensure the school’s stability during a press conference on Thursday, prefacing the plan by saying “serving as board chair has been a challenge particularly in recent months as we have had some financial issues, a crisis quite frankly, in terms of ensuring that this institution that has stood for 157 years remains strong in this community.” The strategic plan has four points focused on financial integrity and stability, academic excellence and integrity, recruitment and retention — which Lewis-Payton called the “lifeblood of the institution” — and institutional advancement and fundraising. In recent months, Talladega College has missed payments to employees as well as vendors who they had not paid “for an extensive period of time,” failed to provide students with federal refund checks and cut the gymnastics team. When asked if other athletic programs could be...