» Editorial board says it’s vital to region Wright State evolve,
Wright State University began as an independent public university in 1967, and has grown and changed over five decades as the region’s needs for the education it provides have also changed.
That evolution must continue because it is impossible to imagine a successful Dayton region without a successful Wright State University.
The university launched a medical school in the 1970s. Today that is one of the university’s most successful programs.
WSU quickly provided partnerships and outreach for members of the Air Force. Those grew over the decades as the training needs of the Air Force itself changed for its personnel.
Now the university’s administration, faculty, student body and board of trustees are working to set a new path. WSU is grappling with a decline in student enrollment in many of its programs. From a high watermark of 18,000 students in 2015, the school enrolled 12,000 in fall 2020. A recent report by the school’s interim provost estimated that barring an unforeseen turnaround, enrollment in 2023 would be closer to 8,975.
The school has been trying to climb out of a financial hole for at least six years. Enrollment projections for several years turned out to be far too rosy, and as enrollment fell the school’s main source of revenue, tuition, declined. A 2018 fact-finder report commissioned by the university blamed the crisis on years of over-spending and a failure to systematically address the revenue declines. The report concluded the school would take 20 years to get back to the level of financial stability it had just a few years before.
The school’s 2020 budget showed a much more stable situation — for now. A revenue surplus last year came partly because the university sold off real
estate it owned in downtown Dayton and because it received additional federal funding in the form of COVID relief. That kind of one-time revenue is not likely to repeat.
Wright State’s importance locally is seen nearly everywhere. Its graduates fill local leadership positions in industry, government, medicine, arts and science. They are working, owning businesses,
and serving our communities throughout southwest Ohio.
Wright State began its life as a branch campus of Ohio State University and Miami University, but was granted local leadership and its own board in 1967. Local leadership — familiar with the needs of students in southwest Ohio and the needs of the community they live in — has served the region well for
decades. Now it needs to guide an important institution through needed change.
A path for success exists. The school is right to focus on providing education at an affordable price. It should market the programs that the university does the best. The administration appears right to seek growth by educating students in careers in nursing and computer science. But many institutions of higher education are competing for those same students and growth in those programs will not be easy.
A proposal approved this month by the school’s board of trustees also calls for cutting 113 faculty positions across most departments — including 49 in liberal arts and 14 from the school of science and math. Those cuts should be made with an eye toward retaining expertise within those disciplines. Many students come to Wright State not just to be trained in one field but also seeking a broader university education. Resources should be clustered around select programs within liberal arts, science, business and its other schools where the education also can be truly excellent.
The school administration, faculty, students and school community have hard choices. All should work together on forging a new path forward. The region needs them — and Wright State — to succeed.