Central State University has accreditation renewed and is released from U.S. Department of Education penalty
Wilberforce, Ohio — Central State University, Ohio’s only public
historically African American university (HBCU), has taken several
powerful strides in its journey toward renewal.
CSU President John Garland announced August 13 that the university
has gained institutional reaccreditation from the Commission on Higher
Education of the North Central Association of Colleges and Universities
(NCA). The accreditation victory represented a significant
accomplishment for the university because Ohio legislators passed a law
last year that gave them the authority to move toward shutting down the
school had it failed to obtain the renewal.
The NCA required the school to file a financial statement and
progress report, but otherwise gave Central State unqualified
accreditation through 2003, Garland said. CSU was last accredited in
1989. An evaluation visit to the CSU campus, scheduled for last year,
was postponed at the university’s request because of financial and
political turmoil.
Garland also announced that the U.S. Department of Education (ED)
has notified the school that it is lifting an ongoing penalty CSU has
endured in its student financial-aid program. The university is being
moved from a cumbersome and restrictive “reimbursement” status to a
quicker “cash-monitoring” system.
The lifting of the sanction will allow CSU to draw upon federal
financial aid money at the beginning of academic quarters and
distribute it to students rather than waiting months for reimbursement.
When ED imposed its penalty in July 1994, the action helped trigger a
serious cash-flow problem at the school that led to political and
financial crises.
Garland called the lifting of the sanction “a major breakthrough”
that reflects the university’s improved ability to manage its finances
and student aid effectively.
