An audit found that North Carolina Agricultural And Technical State University awarded $5 million in financial aid to students without evidence of merit or need-based criteria, and university officials had already alerted the state auditor after uncovering the problem themselves. Chancellor James R. Martin II said the people named in the report no longer work for A&T and that the school will seek restitution from those responsible.
Martin said he personally contacted State Auditor Dave Boliek because full transparency demands nothing less. He also said the school’s corrective steps reflect a commitment to keep every dollar students pay managed with integrity, and that senior officials directly involved with the improperly awarded scholarships are no longer employed.
The audit puts a hard number on a pattern of favoritism that stretched beyond a few isolated awards. More than $780,000 tied to Administrative Recovery Funds went to students who were university employees, family members of employees or people with direct personal or professional ties to the university. The report said 24 students received more than $238,000 combined and were either employees or family members of employees. One nephew of the former executive director of the Real Estate Foundation received $73,063. The daughter of a Center for Teaching Excellence External Advisory Board member received $23,052. The son of a former part-time English instructor got $22,545, while the son of the former associate vice chancellor for campus enterprise received $18,707 and the daughter of the former assistant vice chancellor for business and finance received $14,888.
Boliek said students got an advantage because of who they knew and who they were connected to, adding that money which could have helped another program or a qualified student instead went to people with the right connection. The audit also said the former vice chancellor for business and finance used selective treatment to award $49,024 to one out-of-state student and authorized another $48,654 for two friends of that same student. After the findings became public, the Division of Business and Finance said it would no longer award financial aid and would immediately stop scholarships that had been wrongly granted.
The case centers on how aid was handled inside North Carolina A&T State University, and the report makes clear that the problem reached students linked to former officials, employees and others with campus connections. The school has already moved to cut off the old process, but the larger question now is how much of the $5 million can be recovered and how quickly the university can restore trust in a system meant to be based on need and merit.
