More YSU Certificate Programs OK’d for Eastern Gateway Students

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – The Youngstown State University Academic Senate on Wednesday approved 12 certificate programs aimed at students who transfer from Eastern Gateway Community College.

That follows approval in March of 32 associate degree and certificate programs. 

YSU President Bill Johnson thanked Academic Senate members for their work.

“I am overwhelmed with excitement and appreciation of what the faculty has done to smooth the path to prepare the runway for everything that’s going on with Eastern Gateway Community College,” he said.

The certificate programs approved Wednesday are:

• Advertising.
• Cybersecurity.
• Paralegal studies.
• Data Science.
• Digital and social media marketing.
• Entrepreneurship.
• Audio and music production.
• Finance.
• General management.
• Human resource management.
• Operations management.
• Programming and development.

Eastern Gateway, based in Steubenville with a branch in downtown Youngstown, is expected to close. Its trustees voted in February to pause enrollment after this semester. Last month, Eastern Gateway trustees voted to begin the dissolution process June 30 unless there is an influx of additional sufficient funds by May 31.

That appears unlikely, and it may be the first public college in Ohio to close.

YSU, along with some other colleges and universities, have conducted information sessions, meeting with Eastern Gateway students. YSU has also altered its admission requirements for transferring Eastern Gateway students. And it plans to open a campus in Steubenville.

Johnson said YSU neither anticipated nor asked for the Eastern Gateway situation.

“We found out last December in a phone call from the governor that told us Eastern Gateway was going to have a very serious problem …,” he said. “And he asked us if we could prepare to step in the gap to provide a seamless path for the continuum of education choices for the students throughout the Eastern Gateway area.”

YSU agreed and began the process to develop the programs.

“We’re not buying anything from Eastern Gateway,” the YSU president said. “We’re not adopting their curriculum. We’re standing up our own programs to address the educational needs of the students that used to call Eastern Gateway home …”

Faculty bent over backwards to help make that happen, he said. 

“We had to figure out how to tier our acceptance criteria so that we could accommodate students that probably wouldn’t have the credentials or the background to get into a bachelor program, but they would have the capability to get into a credentialing or a certificate or an associate’s degree program,” Johnson said.

Eastern Gateway has been struggling financially since the U.S. Department of Education placed it on Heightened Cash Monitoring 2 in 2022 and ordered it to cease its free college benefit program, which enabled union members across the country to earn degrees at Eastern Gateway at no cost to them. Most of those students attended class online. When it ordered the college to stop the program, the Department of Education said Eastern Gateway was charging students who received Pell grants more than those who didn’t.

Enrollment under the free college program swelled from about 4,000 students to roughly 40,000 at its peak. It’s at 8,859 this semester.

Heightened Cash Monitoring 2 requires the college to use its own resources to credit student accounts and wait for federal student aid reimbursements from the federal department.

Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.