SC State James Clyburn Center Accused of Mismanaging Funds

The James E. Clyburn University Transportation Center at South Carolina State University has been spending money for the past 12 years, but no one seems to know exactly where that money went. State Senator Robert Ford has recently called for an investigation into the center to find out details on how funds have been managed. Even Rep. Clyburn has become a critic of the center's management as of late.

The Post and Courier, a newspaper out of Charleston, SC has conducted its own investigation using an open records request. The newspaper has described the university's records as "a convoluted system of record-keeping, with no central control and records on the same subject located in different offices or buildings."

There was a consultant's report recently completed by the firm Elliott Davis which concluded that the university's system of grant management not only makes it difficult to track the money, it also makes it tough to find out whether the objectives of the grant were accomplished.

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Hollywood U: Celebs and Higher Ed

They have fame, fortune and are blessed with ability to entertain. Acting and singing are part of their repertoires and they make outrageous sums of money... but how many of them have higher education?

BV has taken the liberty to highlight just a few celebrities who have hit the books at one point or another and some who even obtained college degrees. Welcome to Hollywood U!

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Hollywood U: Celebs and Higher Ed

Alicia Keys - Accepted to Columbia University
After graduating valedictorian of the Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan, a 16-year-old Keys was accepted to Columbia University in New York. However, the talented songstress decided to drop-out and forgo a college ed to pursue her musical career.

Hollywood U: Celebs and Higher Ed

Sean Combs - Attended Howard University
Hip-hop music mogul Sean Combs briefly attended Howard University in 1987 with a major in business administration. Combs honed his chops promoting parties and meeting many of the producers who would go on to help him found Bad Boy Records. Combs dropped out of Howard in his second year to become of of the most successful and powerful individuals in music and fashion with an estimated net worth of $400 million.

Hollywood U: Celebs and Higher Ed

David Banner - Attended Southern University and the University of Maryland (grad school)
No stranger to contradiction, southern rapper David Banner is as well-read as they come. He is one of the few rappers that can boast a college degree as well as an MS in business! His music can often be as polarized as his life as he integrates raunchy and violent themes with conscious fare on his albums.

Hollywood U: Celebs and Higher Ed

Denzel Washington - Graduated from Fordham University
Dr. Washington? Believe it or not, everyone's favorite actor once aspired to be a doctor. But while at Fordham he caught the acting bug and switched his major to journalism. By the time he graduated with a B.A. in Journalism and Drama in 1977, Washington already had his sights set on acting. Nearly two decades later most would agree that that was a pretty smart decision.

Hollywood U: Celebs and Higher Ed

Boris Kodjoe - Graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University
Before he was a film and television heartthrob, actor Boris Kodjoe was well on his way to being a tennis superstar. Kodjoe went to school at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he played for the Rams. After a back injury halted his sprorting aspirations, the poor guy had to settle for being a model... what a sad life.

Hollywood U: Celebs and Higher Ed

Nicole Ari Parker - Graduated from New York University
Born in Baltimore Maryland, Nicole used to pretend that she was Willona from the TV show 'Good Times.' After being named the best actress in Maryland at a high school competition, it further solidified her desire to act. Parker was accepted New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and graduated with an acting degree in 1993.

Hollywood U: Celebs and Higher Ed

Common - Attended Florida A&M University
This Chicago legend attended Florida A&M University to study business administration. It wasn't too long afterward though that Common was featured in the Unsigned Hype column of the 'Source Magazine' and dropped out of college to be a rapper.

Hollywood U: Celebs and Higher Ed

Duane Martin - Graduated from New York University
The former 'All of Us' star played basketball for NYU's team and was even drafted into the NBA by the New York Knicks. While he may not be acting at the moment, Martin is currently the owner of both a sports agency and a real estate company so that college ed may be paying off after all.

Hollywood U: Celebs and Higher Ed

Will Smith - Could have gone to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The biggest actor on the planet had a chance to go to one of the country's premiere colleges, but turned it down to pursue his music career. "My mother, who worked for the School Board of Philadelphia, had a friend who was the admissions officer at MIT. I had pretty high SAT scores and they needed black kids, so I probably could have gotten in. But I had no intention of going to college," said Smith.

Hollywood U: Celebs and Higher Ed

One example is that the center received $5.8 million from the U.S. Department of Transportation, with much of the funding not carefully documented. There was a list of 11 "contractual services" granted in a given year, with no detail on what the money was used for or what the university received in return. In addition to this problem, the consulting report lists numerous concerns about how the money has been spent.

Mismanagement of Historically Black Colleges and Universities remains a persistent problem, consistently inhibiting progress of the African American community. Most of us know students or teachers at HBCUs with missing financial aid papers, bounced paychecks or some other administrative error that was never properly addressed. As a PhD student, I had a friend who applied for a faculty position at a prominent HBCU in the DC area, only to see the university responding to her job application months after every other campus had interviewed her and made an offer. It's just a great big mess.

Most of us know that HBCUs can be the best places in the world to get an education, but we must honestly confront the administrative bungling that takes place on our campuses. Old school leadership holding on to antiquated ways of doing business must be replaced by those with enough vision to bring the black educational community into the 21st century. This is not to say that South Carolina State is doing anything wrong, but don't sit there and pretend that you're surprised.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and a Scholarship in Action Resident of the Institute for Black Public Policy. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.