The current (July 1) issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education contains two articles of potential relevance to USM.

The first, which appears on the front page, tells of a community college of 6000 students in California that may be shut down because of loss of accreditation.  Reasons for the loss of accreditation include an inept governing board and unstable administrative leadership.  Later in the article it is reported that while loss of accreditation is unusual in the case of public institutions, it is likely to become more common because of "pressure from the federal government to clamp down on colleges."

However, an article on page A23 of the July 1 issue reports that a college in Florida sued SACS for withdrawing its accreditation and that SACS agreed, in an out-of-court settlement, to restore the accreditation rather than have a judge order it to do so.  The article notes, though, that the college's suit was well-funded and had the support of important politicians.  The suit alleged that the college was denied due process -- a mistake SACS is unlikely to repeat, if indeed it was even guilty of making that mistake in this case.