In case there was any doubt about the future of Eastern Gateway Community College, Youngstown State University’s new president, Bill Johnson just answered it. Last Friday, he announced that YSU had applied to the Higher Learning Commission to open a new campus in Steubenville. According to Johnson, YSU has no idea where the new location will be, but the plan has been “in the works for a while.”
Right.
Earlier this year, EGCC brought in two YSU executives on a “loan” arrangement to assist EGCC to address the HLC’s concerns regarding the school’s financial aid issues and its academic issues. This is not a receivership arrangement, where YSU would come in to run the campus temporarily. It appears now that YSU was simply engineering a takeover of certain EGCC programs and distribute the programs it doesn’t want to other somewhat local colleges.
The closest community colleges to EGCC are about an hour away in any direction. Ohio also has a series of trade schools that could potentially allow EGCC students to continue taking certain classes.
One sticking point among all the players is that EGCC lacks articulation agreements with other Ohio community colleges and with YSU. So, although YSU is making vague promises about allowing EGCC students to transfer credits, there’s no guarantee that YSU or any of the other institutions will accept all of (or any of) EGCC’s credits.
YSU promises that EGCC students will continue to pay EGCC tuition rates, which is an interesting premise by itself because YSU can’t offer competing associate degree programs at a comparable tuition rate as it is. It remains to be seen how YSU is going to offer one tuition rate to former EGCC students and another tuition rate to its own students for what it claims are substantially similar programs.
Just like that, an Ohio community college could be gone
You might wonder about EGCC’s faculty. YSU has also invited EGCC faculty to apply for positions at the new YSU campus (wherever that might be) when the new campus opens, which could be in the summer or the fall.
Maybe.
Hopefully.
Of course, the faculty who teach programs that YSU doesn’t want – the ones outside of its “core competencies” are likely to be deposited on the curb.
What becomes of EGCC’s local tax assessment? Ohio’s state laws do not provide a mechanism for state universities to levy or collect taxes in the way a community college does. What happens when all of the EGCC students have either graduated, transferred, or stopped out? Do incoming students get charged YSU tuition rates, rather than EGCC rates? (How is that a benefit to anyone except YSU?) And what becomes of the campus and the local district’s long-standing investment in that facility?
Imagine Eastern Michigan University coming in to take over parts of WCC and distribute what’s left to Schoolcraft, Wayne County, Henry Ford, Monroe County, and Jackson. That’s effectively what’s happening here.
And it’s all thanks to a profound lack of oversight on the part of EGCC’s Board of Trustees.
Photo Credit: Ryan , via Flickr
