(Columns often contain opinions)
(The author of this piece if the president of Paine College)
By Lester A. McCorn, PhD, DMin
The question facing Paine College today is not simply whether a historic institution founded in 1882 deserves to survive. The more important question is: Would Augusta and the CSRA be stronger or weaker without Paine College?
Our history, our present impact, and our vision for the future provide the answer.
For more than 140 years, Paine College has produced teachers, ministers, entrepreneurs, public servants, professionals, and civic leaders who have strengthened Augusta, Georgia, and the nation. Founded less than two decades after emancipation through the extraordinary cooperation of Black and white Methodists, Paine was built on a radical proposition for its time: that education could transform the lives of formerly enslaved people and, through them, help transform America.
That mission remains unfinished.
Paine is an educational institution, but it is also an economic engine. According to UNCF’s 2024 Transforming Futures: The Economic Engine of HBCUs study, Paine generates approximately $13 million in annual economic impact and supports 181 jobs in its local and regional economies. Those numbers matter. They demonstrate that an investment in Paine circulates through Augusta and the CSRA through employment, purchasing, student spending, household income, and the increased earning power of our graduates.
But Paine cannot be judged solely by its economic impact.
Paine must also be judged by its social impact.
That impact is written throughout Augusta’s history.
In 1960, Paine students helped lead the local struggle against Jim Crow. Under the leadership of student body president Silas Norman, brother of the legendary artist Jessye Norman, the Paine College Steering Committee organized demonstrations challenging segregation in downtown businesses, public accommodations, and transportation. Paine students were arrested after refusing to surrender their seats on a segregated city bus and helped challenge segregated transportation. Norman would later return to serve Paine as chairman of its Board of Trustees.
Those students demonstrated something fundamental about a Paine education: it was never intended merely to prepare students to make a living. It was intended to prepare them to make a difference.
A decade later, Paine and its students again stood near the center of Augusta’s struggle for racial justice. In May 1970, the death of 16-year-old Charles Oatman following a brutal beating while incarcerated in the Richmond County Jail ignited longstanding anger over racial injustice, inequality, and police brutality. The resulting civil unrest became one of the most consequential episodes in Augusta’s modern history. Six Black men were killed by police gunfire, and the National Guard occupied Black neighborhoods and Paine College.
The events of 1960 and 1970 remind us that Paine has not merely occupied a physical location in Augusta.
Paine has helped transform Augusta.
That work continues today, although its form has changed.
Perhaps no recent action demonstrates this more clearly than Paine College’s decision to forgive outstanding institutional debt for eligible former students whose educational journeys were interrupted by financial hardship. The initiative creates a pathway for hundreds of former students to return to Paine and complete their degrees.
This was more than an accounting decision. It was a statement about who we are.
Students sometimes leave college not because they lack intelligence, determination, or ambition, but because life intervenes. An unpaid institutional balance can become the barrier separating a student from a degree—and a family from greater economic opportunity.
Our decision says: a financial setback should not have to become a permanent educational barrier. To our former students, we are saying: “Your story is not over. Come home. Finish what you started.” That is educational opportunity. That is economic mobility. And that is economic justice in practice.
This is where Paine’s mission intersects powerfully with the vision of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. King’s dream was never limited to racial integration. His pursuit of the Beloved Community demanded something deeper: a society in which racial equality was accompanied by economic justice, human dignity, meaningful opportunity, and shared prosperity.
If the civil-rights struggle of the twentieth century challenged segregated buses and lunch counters, the unfinished struggle of the twenty-first century includes educational inequality, the racial wealth gap, workforce development, entrepreneurship, technology access, healthcare disparities, and the ability of working families to build generational wealth.
Paine has a role in that struggle.
There is another reason Paine College—and HBCUs more broadly—remain necessary: HBCUs are among America’s most important engines of social and economic mobility.
Their distinctive contribution has never been simply enrolling students who already possess every advantage. HBCUs have historically recognized talent, developed potential, and created pathways to opportunity for students excluded from the full benefits of American higher education. More than 70% of HBCU students are Pell Grant eligible. Yet these institutions continue helping students move from low-income and first-generation backgrounds into professions, the middle class, graduate education, entrepreneurship, homeownership, and the beginnings of intergenerational wealth.
Paine embodies this tradition.
For generations, Paine-trained teachers have educated children throughout Augusta and the surrounding region. Consider the social multiplier of one teacher who influences hundreds—perhaps thousands—of young people over a career. Now multiply that impact by generations of Paine educators, ministers, entrepreneurs, public servants, and civic leaders.
That is Paine’s social return on investment.
Our impact also extends beyond America’s borders. Scores of international students have traveled thousands of miles to Augusta seeking the opportunity represented by a Paine education. They bring languages, cultures, experiences, and perspectives that enrich our campus while pursuing dreams of professional careers, graduate education, leadership, and service.
Whether a student comes from Augusta, rural Georgia, another American city, the Caribbean, Latin America, Africa, or elsewhere in the world, the promise of Paine is the same: Where you begin does not have to determine where you end.
That is why we must measure Paine’s impact by more than enrollment, budgets, and degrees awarded. We must ask what happens to people because Paine exists. Did a first-generation student become the first college graduate in a family? Did a graduate become a teacher who will educate hundreds of children? Did an international student fulfill a dream and transform the possibilities of a family or community? Did education become employment, entrepreneurship, homeownership, civic leadership, or generational wealth?
These outcomes belong on Paine College’s social balance sheet. Some of Paine’s return appears in an economic-impact study. Much of it never will.
There is no line on a financial statement for a child inspired by a Paine-trained teacher, a congregation strengthened by a Paine-educated minister, a neighborhood served by a Paine civic leader, a family transformed by its first college graduate, or a city made more just because courageous students refused to surrender their seats on a segregated bus.
Yet these are among Paine College’s greatest assets.
Paine 2036: Building the College the Future Requires
Honoring this history cannot mean simply preserving Paine as it has been. The greatest way to honor our history is to build the Paine College that the future requires.
That is the purpose of Paine 2036: Preparation for Transformation, our ten-year strategic vision. Our “Transformation Plan” is supported by several institutional partners, including Augusta National Golf Club, Bank of America, UNCF, EAB, the Community Foundation of the CSRA, and others.
By 2036, we envision Paine as a nationally ranked liberal arts university serving approximately 1,500 undergraduate students, 250 graduate students, and hundreds of online learners, with a graduation rate exceeding 75% and strong placement into employment, graduate education, and professional study.
But Paine 2036 is about much more than enrollment growth.
We envision a revitalized academic enterprise with programs aligned with the economy of the future—including STEM, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, health sciences and nursing, business and entrepreneurship, teacher education, and graduate education. We envision a transformed campus with modern learning environments, improved student housing, stronger technology infrastructure, historic preservation, and new spaces supporting student success, innovation, health and wellness, entrepreneurship, the sciences, and the arts. All of this fueled by the development of twelve Centers of Excellence, including a Center for STEM, Cybersecurity, AI, and Health Sciences, a Center for Health and Wellness, a Center for Teacher Education and Charter School Innovation, and a Center for Golf Education and Retail Management. All of this will be fueled by the pending federal legislation known as the IGNITE HBCU Excellence Act, which is aimed at delivering historic federal investments to modernize infrastructure, technology, and research facilities at Historically Black Colleges and Universities. By providing grants rather than loans, it helps these institutions upgrade their campuses, expand broadband access, and preserve historic buildings without accumulating new debt.
And we envision Paine as an even more consequential anchor institution for Augusta and the CSRA—connecting education to workforce development, community revitalization, entrepreneurship, cultural enrichment, and economic mobility.
The goal is not simply a bigger Paine. The goal is a more consequential Paine.
Imagine what that Paine can mean for this region: more teachers for our schools; more nurses and healthcare professionals for our communities; more cybersecurity, AI, and technology professionals for Augusta’s growing innovation economy; more entrepreneurs creating businesses and jobs; more artists enriching our cultural life; more world-class athletes; and more first-generation college graduates transforming the economic trajectories of their families.
That is not merely institutional growth.
That is regional development.
So, yes, Paine must be financially sustainable. We must grow enrollment, raise resources, strengthen academic programs, maintain accreditation, revitalize our campus, and operate with discipline and accountability.
But financial sustainability is not the ultimate measure of Paine College’s worth.
We must measure what matters.
We must measure graduates produced, teachers prepared, jobs created, families strengthened, businesses started, communities served, civic leaders developed, former students reclaimed, and lives transformed.
The question, therefore, is not simply: What can Augusta do for Paine College?
The larger question is:
What can Augusta accomplish through Paine College?
In 1882, Paine was necessary because freedom required education. In 1960, Paine students demonstrated that education could challenge segregation. In 1970, another generation confronted the unfinished struggle for racial justice. In 2026, we are removing financial barriers so former students can return and complete their degrees. And through Paine 2036, we are preparing an institution capable of confronting the challenges and opportunities of the next generation.
Paine College does not simply occupy 60 acres in Augusta. It occupies a place in the economic, educational, cultural, spiritual, and civic infrastructure of this community. Our past gives us credibility. Our present gives us responsibility. And Paine 2036 gives us a roadmap for the future.
That is why Paine College was necessary then. That is why Paine College is necessary now. And that is why we are determined to ensure that Paine College will be necessary for generations to come.
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