Paine College

History

Paine College was founded on November 1, 1882 by the joint action of two Methodist bodies: the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church (now the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church), a historically Black denomination, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (now part of the United Methodist Church), a historically white Southern denomination. The college was the institutional realization of an idea first articulated in 1869 by Bishop Lucius Henry Holsey of the CME Church — a vision for a school that would train African American teachers and ministers under the joint sponsorship of both denominations. The initial endowment was startlingly modest: $7.15 from the Virginia Conference and $8.85 from the South Georgia Conference, presented to the Trustees of Paine Institute by Bishop Holsey on December 12, 1882.

The interracial Methodist sponsorship made Paine's founding distinctive in the Jim Crow South. The college operated for more than a century as a four-year liberal arts institution oriented around teacher preparation, ministerial training, and the education of African American students from the Central Savannah River Area of Georgia and South Carolina. The institution was named for Robert Paine, a Methodist bishop, and its location in Augusta — at the intersection of the historic CME presence in the region — gave it a particular role in producing CME and United Methodist clergy.

Paine's recent history has been defined by accreditation crisis and, more recently, recovery. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) voted to remove the college's accreditation in 2016 over financial and governance concerns; litigation preserved accreditation through 2020, when SACSCOC's withdrawal took effect. The college subsequently pursued accreditation through the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACS). A July 2025 TRACS reaffirmation evaluation initially yielded multiple unaddressed Findings, and the Commission placed Paine on show-cause status in October 2025, requiring the college to demonstrate why reaffirmation should not be denied. Following an intensive compliance effort under President Lester A. McCorn — who became the college's eighteenth president in January 2025 — TRACS granted Paine a five-year reaffirmation of accreditation in late April 2026, resolving the immediate threat to the institution's standing and preserving students' access to federal financial aid.

Current Accreditation Status

Paine College is accredited by the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACS). The path to the current standing was contested: TRACS conducted an on-site reaffirmation evaluation July 14–17, 2025, after which the evaluation team identified seven Findings of non-compliance with TRACS Institutional Eligibility Requirement Standards (2.1, 3.1, 7.1, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, and 13.1) and noted unaddressed Recommendations. In October 2025 the Commission placed the college on show-cause status, requiring an updated Compliance Report by March 1, 2026 ahead of a final determination.

At its April 2026 meeting the TRACS Accreditation Commission granted Paine College a five-year reaffirmation of accreditation, ending the show-cause period. College leadership has framed the decision as confirmation that Paine degrees remain recognized by employers and graduate schools and that students retain access to federal Title IV financial aid, and has paired the reaffirmation with a publicly announced expansion and transformation plan. In his February 4, 2026 State of the College address, President McCorn reported that applications had risen roughly 51 percent and that nearly one thousand students had been admitted, and set a ten-year goal of tripling enrollment. In the weeks after the reaffirmation the Board of Trustees approved eighteen new degree programs, nine at the bachelor’s level and nine at the master’s level, together with plans for new residence halls and academic facilities; McCorn reported that the college had closed a fiscal year with a positive operating balance for the first time in recent memory. The transformation plan targets roughly 400 students in the near term and 1,500 at full build-out, anchored by a new ten-year strategic plan and the restoration of summer programming. Subsequent entries will track enrollment, finances, and the next scheduled TRACS review.

Notable Alumni

A representative selection from a century-plus of graduates concentrated in education, ministry, public service, and letters.

Significance

Paine's founding is structurally significant. The joint sponsorship of the CME Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South — a Black denomination and a Southern white denomination collaborating in 1882 on the establishment of a college for African American students — was an unusual experiment in the immediate post-Reconstruction era, and it produced a college with denominational entanglements that few peer HBCUs share.

The contemporary significance of Paine is inseparable from its survival. Paine has been one of the principal educators of Black professionals in Augusta and the Central Savannah River Area for more than 140 years. The April 2026 five-year TRACS reaffirmation — secured after a decade of accreditation jeopardy and a formal show-cause review — preserves one of the South's most distinctive small private HBCUs and demonstrates that an institution can rebuild compliance and confidence after losing regional accreditation. Paine's recovery carries weight well beyond Augusta as a case study for the broader cohort of financially fragile HBCUs.

Source notes: This entry draws from the Paine College institutional history and accreditation announcements (paine.edu); the New Georgia Encyclopedia entry on Paine College; Inside Higher Ed's reporting on Paine's 2020 SACSCOC accreditation loss; TRACS public announcements and the October 2025 Commission actions; WFXG and WRDW (Augusta) reporting on the April 2026 five-year reaffirmation and expansion plans; the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education on the 2024 appointment of President Lester A. McCorn; and biographical records on Frank Yerby, Channing H. Tobias, and Michael Thurmond. Enrollment figure is the most recent reliably available; accreditation status is current to June 2026. Discrepancies noted in the corrections log.