Central State University supporters fear that a compromise plan to rescue the school could end up killing it instead.
Even some of the school’s trustees believe the legislative plan –
scheduled for a final decision by the end of June – is designed to
cause Central State to cave in on itself, saving Ohio’s legislators and
other state officials the political fallout from a direct decision to
shut down the state’s only historically Black, public university.
Dr. George Ayers, the consultant heading up a temporary management
team, said the legislative plan’s restrictions, coupled with a new
round of budget cuts that threaten additional layoffs at the school,
are “putting a rope around the neck of the institution.”
Central State (CSU) has been fighting for its political and
financial life for several months, after a ballooning debt prompted
efforts by some Republican members of the Ohio General Assembly to
remove all state funding for the school. Some legislators had floated
the prospect of merging CSU with another university, such as the
private Wilberforce University – which gave birth to, and sits across
the street from, Central State – or the much larger Ohio State
University. But the merger talk has faded, and members of the Ohio
legislature now have devised a very different plan that they say could
restore CSU’s health, but which has the possibility of closing the
school altogether.
Legislators have amended the state’s budget bill to include $28
million in funding to keep the school open for the next two years. But
they have also attached more than two dozen restrictions and conditions
to that funding, requiring Central State to reduce its academic
programs, faculty, and athletics, and to pay off an accumulated debt,
estimated to be at least $8.6 million, within its existing budget. The
school would have to mothball its powerful football program – which was
already under sanction by the National Association of Intercollegiate
Athletics (NAIA) – and raise its private fund-raising totals and
admissions standards while reducing student attrition and loan-default
rates. It also would be prohibited from using state funds to provide
grants or scholarships to out-of-state students.
If the school fails to meet any one of the conditions, the state’s Board of Regents would take steps to close the school.
Legislators presented the proposal to CSU’s board of trustees in
late May as the best and only compromise that would allow the school to
remain open. Trustees criticized the restrictions, saying they amounted
to punishment of current trustees and students who had nothing to do
with the prior mismanagement that led to CSU’s problems. However, the
board voted four to one to accept the provisions.
