SCAD is an elite creative career school with it’s primary campus in Savannah, Georgia. You may recognize their student's work from the 2019 Super Bowl Half Time Show, designing the Chick-fil-A Drive Thru, and amongst other things, their student and alumni’s countless awards from both the Grammys and the Oscars. 

While this school has an honorable set of staff and hard working students, it claims to be a nonprofit.

This is not the case.

The supposed ‘nonprofit’ university’s net worth increased to more than $1.3 billion during 2022, according to the nonprofit’s latest IRS 990 form.

SCAD reportedly generated more than $622 million in revenue during the 12-month period, while expenses amounted to almost $516 million. About $536 million in revenue came from tuition and fees.

Paula Wallace, the president of the college, is the 10th highest paid college president as of 2021. According to IRS tax returns from fiscal year 2021, Wallace made a total compensation of $2,583,936 and a base pay of $1,198,542. What does she do to earn this you may ask? Comes out to meet and sit with students for photo ops.

All while students are being told they will no longer have access to free parking. 

As of August 4th of 2025 at 9:28 am, students received an email notifying them as a reminder of changes that were made to the school’s parking permit rules.

The email states, quote “Students living in Chatham are not eligible to register for parking through SCAD and cannot park on SCAD property.”

The college has reportedly had a housing crisis due to an over acceptance rate, even doubling back on students they guaranteed housing to, leaving them scrambling to find alternative off campus housing. Students even discussed the possibility of sleeping on each others couches, most said they would have to drop out because they would not be able to afford a monthly rent, and others had to find homes in unsafe neighborhoods reporting hearing gunshots outside their doors and having strangers try to break into their homes. Some students were fortunate enough to have been placed in housing, but even that was tricky.

Students paid a non-refundable 750$ housing deposit guaranteeing their housing. While in years past, whoever paid their deposit first got first pick of housing, as of the 2025/2026 school year, choice in housing was reserved for students with the lowest credit hours. This forced upperclassman to take whatever was leftover after lowerclassman had their pick. Upperclassman have been placed in the Chatham Dorms, not because they wanted to, but because it was all the school would allow.

Now these same students are being told that they are, quote, “not eligible to register for parking through SCAD and cannot park on SCAD property”

This means these students will not be able to park at their housing, having to find and pay for street parking elsewhere in the city and walk to their dorms from there. This also applies to their class buildings, which they already pay to go to.

On top of it all, SCAD dining hall food has resulted in hundreds of cases of food poisoning, serving extremely limited selections often found served with bugs and their meat raw and pink. Their selections vary at a time with a majority in rice, tofu, and raw meats, rarely serving a variety of fresh vegetables and fruits. Elevators operate with expired inspection stickers for months, and break down frequently with students on them, resulting in fire department rescues. All while students are paying $49,000 in tuition, and the cheapest dining plan that they are mandated to purchase as a part of their on-campus tuition is a total of $2,092. 

That’s more in tuition than the average annual income in certain states in America. That’s only roughly 10,000 less than Harvard Tuition.

By signing this petition you are saying NO MORE to SCAD’s Millions in profit while students are being robbed of free parking, no housing, broken elevators, and uncooked food resulting in food poisoning.

Every college student has a right to park at their class buildings, the ability to live on a safe campus if they so choose, and edible food they can live off of from their dining halls. 

Sources : 

ivycoach.com https://www.ivycoach.com/the-ivy-coach-blog/the-rankings/highest-paid-college-presidents/

savannahagenda.com https://savannahagenda.com/scads-worth-and-student-count-continues-to-rise-as-employee-numbers-drop-in-latest-financial-report/

harvard.edu https://registrar.fas.harvard.edu/tuition-and-fees