A church, a city, and private donors are trying to resuscitate Birmingham-Southern College, but can the financially strapped school be raised from the dead?

Birmingham-Southern College

 

The United Methodist Church, private donors, and the city of Birmingham are trying to fill a financial hole at Birmingham-Southern College (BSC), in an effort to keep the struggling private school afloat. Longtime Alabama attorney Donald Watkins says the time, effort, and money could be better spent in other ways. In essence, Watkins says, BSC is a lost cause that cannot be saved. Under the headline "It's Impossible to Save Birmingham- Southern; Students Must Escape This Sinking Ship While They Can," Watkins writes:

The glory days of Birmingham-Southern College (BSC), an elite private school that was founded in 1856, have come and gone. BSC is now a financially distressed and dying institution.

BSC’s credit rating is so low that any loan to the college would be rated as a "junk bond." Its student enrollment, which is predominantly White, has been shrinking for years. BSC's life expectancy is zero.

Its distressed financial condition is not the only challenge BSC faces, Watkins reports:

BSC is located in Birmingham, Alabama -- the most depressed city in the state, as ranked by smartasset.com in 2022.

Birmingham is the second "most dangerous city in the United States," according to a study released in May 2023 by data site MoneyGeek.com.

Crime in the area surrounding BSC is bad and it is getting increasingly worse. Last Friday, there was a wild west-style shootout on I-59 near the Arkadelphia Road exit that leads to the college. The shootout injured four people and shut down the I-59 for hours.

A couple of months earlier, stunning TikTok videos went viral on the Internet when they showed scenes of a nearby Pilot Travel Center that had been abandoned by employees and looted. The videos showed empty shelves, broken merchandise, and a ransacked ATM inside the travel center, which is located less than a mile away at Finley Boulevard and Bankhead Highway.

Birmingham is located in a state that ranks at or near the bottom in many quality-of-life factors.

BSC’s alumni and big-money donors have pretty much given up on the college. Last month, the Alabama State Treasury refused to give the college a $30-million loan because of its distressed financial condition.

A 2018 survey of the 13 best small colleges in Alabama ranked Birmingham-Southern No. 2, behind only Mobile's Springhill College. Is there a reasonable expectation of saving the college in its current state of financial disarray? Watkins says the answer is no:

It’s impossible for BSC to beat these insurmountable odds. Anyone who continues to peddle the fantasy that BSC can be saved is perpetrating a fraud and rendering a great disservice to the remaining students who need to escape from this sinking ship while they can.

Birmingham city officials have promised to pump $5 million into BSC, which is expected to be delivered on or about November 21, 2023, as a Thanksgiving gift. This money will not save BSC, but it will definitely help the college's primary banker -- ServisFirst Bank -- reduce its financial losses on outstanding loans to the college before BSC tanks.

In turn, city officials and other supporting Birmingham-area elected officials can pick up some hefty campaign contributions from ServisFirst Bank when they run for re-election to their current positions or campaign for a higher office.

What city officials cannot provide to BSC is a public-safety plan that protects its students when they are living, working, and traveling in Birmingham outside the safety of the walled-off and isolated college. 

In fact, these officials do not have an effective public-safety plan for any area of Birmingham. As a result, violent crime is out of control in the city. Shootings and crime-related deaths are a daily occurrence in Birmingham.

City officials do not have to worry about this skyrocketing violence because they are escorted by taxpayer-funded security details wherever they go. Even high-profile visitors to the city, such as  the presidents of Alabama A&M University and Alabama State University, feel the need to bring their own security details when they are in town. Their heavy security details were present everywhere these two presidents went in Birmingham during the Magic City Classic weekend.

BSC is on its deathbed. The responsible thing for BSC officials to do at this juncture is wind down the educational and business affairs of the college and assist the remaining students in transferring to other colleges.