Privatized Idaho

An Article for Teen Vogue and Lux

This article appears in full at Lux and Teen Vogue. Made possible with funding from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project

A few years ago, Sunnie Helling decided to get serious about sobriety. She moved into the Union Gospel Mission, a religious charity in her hometown of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, that helps unhoused people get back on their feet. She began to plan a better life for herself and her two daughters. “I knew I wanted to get my GED,” she told me. She also knew that the Adult Education Center at North Idaho College (NIC) offered a free GED program. It seemed like a good place to start.

Helling is now just five credits away from graduating from NIC with a General Studies degree. But it’s possible the college won’t exist when it comes time for commencement. By next April, NIC may lose accreditation, leaving the Idaho Panhandle without a single state institution of higher education. 

The charter violations that kicked off this accreditation scandal four years ago never had anything to do with academics. The two-year community college offers a solid education and features the top nursing program in the state. Their finances are stable too. No, NIC might go under because the Board of Trustees has existed in a state of toxicity, chaos, and dysfunction ever since the far right gained a board majority four years ago.

It is difficult to overstate how catastrophic disaccreditation would be for the people of North Idaho. With a price tag 65 percent lower on average than four-year state institutions, community colleges place higher education within reach of the least advantaged Americans; over a third of their students make less than $20,000 per year. At NIC, 57 percent of students receive financial aid. Local businesses depend on the college for employee training on everything from office software to forklift operation. High school students can enroll in dual credit programs, which let students get a head start on their first year of college and allow homeschoolers to obtain official transcripts.

If NIC goes under, students will either need to pay out-of-state tuition in nearby Spokane, Washington, move south, or abandon their aspirations of higher education. Idaho is enormous; you could fit 17 Connecticuts within its borders. And yet, while Connecticut has 12 community colleges, Idaho has only four. “Our community colleges are named by cardinal directions for a reason,” the college’s current president, Nick Swayne, told me. “Losing one would be just traumatic.”

Read the rest at Lux and/or Teen Vogue