Georgia Perimeter College To Lay Off 185

Another bad sign from the world of higher education. Here is the Atlanta Journal Constitution with the details:

Georgia Perimeter College will lay off about 185 people to close what could be a $25 million deficit next year.

Tenured and tenure-track faculty will be exempt from layoffs, but they will teach more courses. More students will be crammed into classrooms. And the college will hold off buying new computers and upgrading its network as part of an eight-step plan Interim President Rob Watts released Friday.

"Staff will need to stretch to take up the slack that will be created," Watts wrote in an email to faculty and staff. "My focus will be on our access mission and on preserving academic and instructional quality."

Questions remain over how the two-year college dug itself into this financial mess.

The college has been overspending for the past four years, according to state audits and university system analysis reviewed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The school depleted its reserves to balance the books, leaving little money to bail itself out this time.

Auditors from the University System of Georgia are investigating the school's internal controls and how it recorded and communicated financial information, according to emails and documents the AJC obtained through an Open Records request. The system's chief auditor wrote the college failed to conduct regular audit reports.

State auditors will also review the school's books. And the Attorney General's Office is reviewing the situation because former President Anthony Tricoli alleged "fraudulent behavior by key financial personnel." Watts has since brought in new financial officers.

Of course, the biggest fraud of all is persisting in selling the need for a college education to young people who then graduate with huge student loan debts and can't find a decent job. But Georgia Perimeter is hardly unique in that regard.