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In the November election, the youth vote was poised to be one of the most crucial blocks in the state. But voting rights advocates worried students would struggle with the state’s new voter ID laws, among other issues that can keep young people from casting ballots.
Those questions about the student vote sparked the creation of the Student Voting Rights Lab—a joint class of students at Duke University and North Carolina Central University examining provisional ballots and barriers for student voters in North Carolina.
Provisional ballots, a last resort option for voters when their eligibility is in question, can help decide elections in North Carolina. Take the state Supreme Court race: While Republican Jefferson Griffin led Democrat Allison Riggs by more than 10,000 votes as ballots were still being counted on election night, Riggs was ahead once officials finished tallying provisional and mail-in absentee ballots.
Research conducted at Duke found that young voters aged 18 to 25 cast provisional ballots at a rate nearly three times higher than all North Carolina voters in the 2020 election. The rejection rate of those ballots was higher too, at almost 80 percent compared to the statewide average of about 60 percent.
“If you think about the ripple effect of how this works, the harm is much bigger than the actual, literal number of ballots that are thrown,” said Gunther Peck, a Duke professor who is one of the lab’s leaders. “A lot of young people are discouraged or feeling discouraged about voting.”
After weeks of data-crunching, we caught up with the lab to see what they learned about the 2024 election and young voters.
–Erin Gretzinger
Young People Cast Fewer Provisional Ballots in 2024. Many Still Didn’t Count.
While provisional ballots can help decide elections in North Carolina, many ballots—especially students’—often get tossed.
Thanks for reading The Quad, a higher education newsletter written by The Assembly’s Matt Hartman and Erin Gretzinger. Reach us with tips or ideas at highered@theassemblync.com.
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Bad News for SAU
Over the weekend, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools voted on three North Carolina schools’ accreditation status. Guilford College continued on probation for good cause, and Cape Fear Community College had its warning lifted. Saint Augustine’s University wasn’t so lucky.
Following SACSCOC’s decision to revoke its accreditation, the Raleigh HBCU has said it will appeal—the same path the university took last year that allowed it to temporarily regain its status. Saint Augustine’s said that the appeal process will allow it to present new developments that occurred after November 18, which was the deadline to submit information to SACSCOC for the review. St. Augustine’s struck a deal on November 17 with 50 Plus 1 Sports, a sports financing and development firm, to lease some of its property.
According to a letter of intent released in Saint Augustine’s latest audit of itself, the partnership could generate as much as $60 million before the end of the year. Saint Augustine’s hasn’t said if there are other financial backers behind the development or what the real estate project would be. The university said it would reveal additional details at a press conference sometime this month.
The university was cited for the same six violations of SACSCOC’s core requirements and standards as the last time it lost accreditation. Those included issues with its governing board’s characteristics; its financial resources, control, and responsibility; missing financial documents; and noncompliance with state and federal regulations. The university also received a citation for the control of sponsored research/external funds.
Robert Kelchen, the head of the University of Tennessee’s Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, said it will be “exceedingly difficult” for Saint Augustine’s to retain accreditation with SACSCOC after the institution lost it twice.
Small private universities in a similar boat have looked to other accrediting bodies for survival, Kelchen said. In particular, institutions have turned to the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, better known as TRACS. That has worked for other small HBCUs, like Paul Quinn College in Texas and Morris Brown College in Georgia.
“Ultimately, this process will take a while to play out,” Kelchen told The Assembly. “And I would be shocked if they have not started planning for an application to TRACS.”
Felecia Commodore, an associate professor of education policy at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who studies HBCUs, said Saint Augustine’s is a testament to the resilience of HBCUs despite issues like discriminatory funding, smaller endowments, and other financial challenges the institutions have disproportionately faced. Still, she said Saint Augustine’s and other struggling HBCUs must consider serious changes to survive with declining enrollment and increasing competition.
“Institutions that are serious about long-term institutional health and sustainability must be vigilant about having high-functioning governing boards, practices, and structures,” Commodore said. “Investing in board development and assessment and addressing governance challenges routinely and directly will be key in HBCUs continuing to thrive and survive in this next era of higher education.”
The university did not respond to a request for comment.
–Erin Gretzinger
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What We’re Reading
Political Football: We wouldn’t normally cover football in The Quad, but UNC-Chapel Hill’s pursuit of NFL legend Bill Belichick spotlighted the tension between the school’s administrators, including athletic director Bubba Cunningham, and its trustees. The Athletic’s report on the school’s coaching search has more details.
The Calculus Calculus: High schoolers don’t want to take calculus, and college professors would prefer they take statistics or really learn algebra instead. So why do so many college-bound students feel compelled to take it? According to the Hechinger Report, it’s because admissions officers think they should.
Say Goodbye to Your PDFs: Better start thanking your communications and IT colleagues now. As The Chronicle of Higher Education reports, most universities will have to overhaul their websites (all of their hundreds or thousands of websites) to comply with new web accessibility standards by April 2026. That means every PDF archive or video without a transcript or image of a flyer faces a greater risk of an expensive lawsuit.
–Matt Hartman
Reach our team with tips or ideas at highered@theassemblync.com.
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