When Republican gubernatorial candidate James Rhodes was on the campaign trail in 1962, one of his central promises was to expand access to higher education. Rhodes, who dropped out of Ohio State University after his first quarter but saw its value, famously pledged to "put a college education within 25 miles of every boy and girl in Ohio."
Rhodes saw the writing on the wall. Baby Boomers were hitting high school, and Ohio's college-age population was about to explode.
During his first two terms as governor, Ohio's public higher education system grew from six universities to 12, welcoming the University of Cincinnati, University of Toledo, University of Akron, Youngstown State University, Cleveland State University and Wright State University into
the fold. Community colleges, technical colleges and regional branch campuses also took root across the state.
Students flocked to the new state universities, now able to expand buoyed by tax dollars. Five of the universities alone enrolled 77,000 students in 1966, a 77% increase in just four years.
Today, Ohio is home to 14 public universities, with 24 regional branch campuses and 22 community colleges. The state also has dozens of private independent colleges and universities. One university president described Rhodes' plan as "one of the most consequential public investments in our state's history."
But as Ohio's population has gotten older, there are fewer traditional college-age students. That shift – dubbed "the demographic cliff" by higher education experts – means there is a growing competition among schools for a shrinking pool of students.
Falling enrollment and mounting financial pressures have forced some states and institutions to make difficult decisions.
Sixty years after the state dramatically expanded its higher ed footprint, some are now asking: Does Ohio have too many public colleges and universities, and is consolidation the answer? Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican running to replace Gov. Mike DeWine, floated the idea in March to consolidate Ohio's public universities to pay for axing the state's income tax.
"Look at the number of universities in our state. I love universities in Ohio. I want us to have the best universities, but we have too many of them," Ramaswamy said in a video posted on the social media app Threads. "They need to be consolidated, and when you consolidate them, they can actually be centers of excellence who are actually the best in their respective domains instead of trying to create replicas and clones of one another throughout the state."
More than 300 colleges and universities offering an associate degree or higher closed between 2008 and 2024, according to The Hechinger Report's college closure tracker. The vast majority of those closures happened at for-profit and private liberal arts institutions.
Closing public institutions is extremely rare. Of the 43 institutions that closed in Ohio between 2008 and 2024, only four were public, according to The Hechinger Report. The largest of these was Eastern Gateway Community College. Rather than close outright, public institutions facing a financial crisis or unsustainable enrollment often consider consolidation.
Consolidation can mean anything from sharing operational functions and facilities to having one leadership team overseeing multiple institutions to the complete combination of previously separate universities.
Conversation about consolidating can quickly become fraught, highlighting tensions between campuses, elected officials, alumni and regional communities. But even some who are concerned about the ramifications of consolidation told The Dispatch that state leaders need to discuss the future of higher education in Ohio.
"There is an important conversation to have, and we are not talking about it in a serious way," said Lockwood Reynolds, a Kent State University professor who studies the economics of higher education.
DeWine: Consolidation 'Not going to happen'
Ramaswamy, a Harvard College and Yale Law School graduate, was responding to a question about how he would eliminate Ohio's income tax, which brought in about $10.4 billion in fiscal year 2025. In that same fiscal year, Ohio spent $2.12 billion on public universities, regional campuses and community colleges, according to a Legislative Service Commission report.
Two weeks later, in an opinion article Ramaswamy said Ohio operates "one of the most fragmented public university systems in the country," leading the state to spread "its limited state dollars across too many bloated bureaucracies."
He specifically referenced four state public universities – Central State University, Cleveland State University, Kent State University and the University of Akron – as institutions that have faced challenges.
In April, Ramaswamy said at a Turning Point USA event that taxpayers shouldn't have to fund "subpar universities." Ramaswamy has since altered his pitch, saying that he thinks state public universities need to consolidate duplicative programs, not close institutions. Evan Machan, Ramaswamy's campaign spokesperson, said in a statement that Ramaswamy wants to work with state leaders to find a solution to rising tuition costs and enrollment challenges.
His comments sparked backlash from university leaders, elected officials and his opponent, Dr. Amy Acton, Ohio's former health director who is now running as a Democrat for governor.
Virginia Schaus, spokesperson for the Acton campaign, said Ramaswamy's plan "would be devastating for students and local communities across the state."
Acton attended Youngstown State University for undergrad and Northeast Ohio Medical University for medical school. Her campaign said she will lower costs and boost enrollment for higher education by supporting initiatives like direct admissions and expanded associate-to-bachelor degree pathways.
DeWine reassured public university presidents and trustees at the Ohio Department of Higher Education’s 2026 Trustees Conference in September that consolidating state universities is "not going to happen. Can't happen. Too much opposition."
“The idea that we would get rid of any of our state universities would infringe upon our efforts to broaden our access," DeWine said.
Some university presidents also bristled at the idea, particularly those listed in Ramaswamy's op-ed.
"We need to honor the identity of our public universities, which were formed for specific purposes to meet the needs of their region," Cleveland State University President Laura Bloomberg said in a statement in April. "All options need to be discussed – there are many ways to think about programs and strategic partnerships that are far short of consolidation and achieve the goals of being more nimble, efficient institutions of higher education."
Kent State University President Todd Diacon has been the most outspoken on the issue. In April, Diacon wrote a lengthy response to “anyone raising questions about Ohio’s public universities.”
"The public university system in Ohio wasn’t assembled carelessly. It was built by elected leaders responding to real public demand," Diacon said. “... In the decade of the 1960s, we built 60 new buildings. Those buildings were filled with the sons and daughters of the Greatest Generation, ready to build Ohio’s future. This was not a waste. This was Ohio investing in itself.”
Others like University of Akron President R.J. Nemer told The Dispatch that he "didn't think the sky was falling" when he heard Ramaswamy's comments. Nemer, a sports and entertainment entrepreneur who came to Akron in 2022 first as a dean before becoming president, said Ramaswamy's assessment is coming from a business perspective.
"There are a whole lot of ways to address efficiency," he said. "What is being evaluated is how to be more efficient and how to be an asset, a well-performing institution for the state."
Is consolidation inevitable?
Consolidations in higher education have become more frequent in the U.S. According to the consulting firm EY-Parthenon, there were 94 total consolidations from 2010 through 2019, up 32 combinations from 2000 through 2009.
Looking specifically at state system-led consolidations, 22 state higher education systems with publicly available information on consolidation or merger attempts occurred from 2007 to 2021, according to a report by Ithaka S+R, a nonprofit research and consulting group that studies education.
Ricardo Azziz – principal at Strategic Partnerships in Higher Ed Consulting Group, an Alabama-based firm specializing in advising institutions on restructurings like consolidations – said the combination of rising costs, softening demand for college, and an excess capacity of 8.5 million undergraduates, it's a matter of when, not if, schools start the conversation.
Ohio enrolled about 23,500 fewer full-time students across its public university system, from 374,726 in fiscal year 2005 to 351,145 in fiscal year 2025, according to the Ohio Department of Higher Education.
"Consolidation is inevitable," Azziz said.
There are a number of good reasons to consider consolidation, Azziz said. The right reason to pursue it, he said, is to provide better opportunities for students. If institutions can't honestly answer, "Does it benefit students in the long run?", then Azziz said consolidation might not be the solution.
"If you're going to save money for tax savings that will benefit only the rich, then that probably is not a good idea," he said. "If the merger is to undermine ideological or political issues, or to dismantle research structures, then it is probably not the right idea. The right reason is all about the students and what can be provided to the students."
Azziz pointed to Georgia as an example of when consolidation works. Between 2013 and 2018, the University System of Georgia completed nine institutional consolidations, reducing the number of institutions in the system from 35 to 26. The majority of those mergers were between four-year public universities.
USG leaders laid out six guiding principles for consolidation: Increase opportunities to raise education attainment levels; improve accessibility, regional identity and compatibility; avoid duplication of academic programs; create significant potential for economies of scale and scope; enhance regional economic development; and streamline administrative services while maintaining or improving service level and quality.
Azziz said Georgia's consolidation didn't close campuses, but rather merged institutions under one identity.
An Ithaka S+R report on consolidations found that the USG consolidations did not reduce spending on the consolidated institutions. While some of the consolidations eventually resulted in cost-savings, the report said, any freed-up funding was still allocated to the combined institution to redirect toward other needs.
Other states that have tried consolidation have seen mixed reviews.
In 2024, Pennsylvania State University officials leaders announced plans to cut almost $100 million from the university’s fiscal 2026 budget, with $54 million in cuts coming from its commonwealth campuses. Penn State cut 10% of the workforce at its commonwealth campuses through voluntary buyouts and consolidated 11 of its campuses under the leadership of four chancellors. It is also planning to close seven campuses at the end of this academic year.
Azziz said the Penn State consolidations have been less clear about what the value of closing and merging campuses will be for students, leading to a "confusing" process.
Would college consolidation work in Ohio?
If Ohio higher education leaders ultimately decided to pursue consolidation, experts said there would be hurdles to jump.
For one, Ohio's public higher education system has "mild coordination" with each other compared to other states, higher ed economist Lockwood said. States like Wisconsin have stronger coordination between their public universities, he said, making it easier for those systems to make decisions.
"It's unclear how we would even have these conversations at the programatic level," Reynolds said. "We don't have the infrastructure in place to really have this conversation."
There's also the question of how consolidation would affect the state's economy.
In July, Columbus-based public policy firm Scioto Analysis surveyed 14 economists on if college consolidations would generate savings and if it would affect Ohio's long-run economic output. The report found that economists were evenly split on whether reducing the number of universities in Ohio would generate savings for the state. But a majority of economists agreed that reducing the number of Ohio's universities would reduce long-run economic output in the state and its bachelor's degree attainment.
Rob Moore, principal for Scioto Analysis, said consolidation can't just be about cost savings.
"It could be an over-correction that harms the state in the long run," Moore said.
Cost savings through consolidations are historically small. Ithaka S+R's report found that implementing a consolidation plan can be a costly process in itself: "Integrating or reconciling technology systems, administrative processes, branding, faculty and staff buyouts all require significant direct expenses and personnel time at both the system and institution level."
Reynolds said when public campuses close, in-state students most often enroll at other state public universities. That means that the state is still paying for that student through appropriations, just at another institution. The only way states save money in that situation is if students don't enroll at another university, he said.
Diacon, Kent State's president, wrote in April that demographic shifts are a real issue at Ohio's public universities. Total enrollment across the sector is roughly the same as it was in 2005. But state support for higher education adjusted for inflation, he noted, is 27% lower in 2026 than 2005.
In 2025, Ohio public institutions received $7,394 in education appropriations per full-time enrolled student, approximately 61% of the U.S. average, according to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. General operating appropriations in Ohio decreased 33.4% per full-time enrolled student from $10,146 in 2001 to $6,760 in 2025.
Bob Gitter, a labor economist and professor emeritus at Ohio Wesleyan University, said there is not enough emphasis on what college consolidations would mean for access to higher education and the longterm effects on the communities where those schools are located.
"It would save money for the state in the short run but would be penny wise and pound foolish in the long run," Gitter said. "Education is one of the primary functions of government."
Reynolds shared a similar sentiment. Though there is increasing skepticism about the value of a college degree, a majority of Americans say that college is important, according to a Gallup poll published in October.
The 2026 Lumina Foundation-Gallup State of Higher Education Study recently found that a majority of adults – 73% of adults without a degree or credential and 69% of college graduate – say earning a two-year or four-year degree is at least as important as it was 20 years ago. Most parents say they would prefer their child pursue a two- or four-year degree immediately after high school, according to an August 2025 Gallup poll.
Those with bachelor's degrees continue to out-earn their peers with only a high school diploma, with men earning approximately $900,000 more in median lifetime earnings and women earning $630,000 more, according to the Social Security Administration. Those lifetime earnings are even higher for adults with graduate degrees.
"This is not a business, it is a public good, and the state needs to decide what kind of investments it wants to make and what tradeoffs it's willing to make," Reynolds said.
What's next for Ohio's public universities?
The future of higher education is not the primary issue on the November ballot, but experts and onlookers say whoever takes over as Ohio's next governor will have a major impact on the state's colleges and universities.
Whoever is in office next, some university leaders say they are already taking steps on their own to right-size their institutions.
Kent State launched a strategic restructuring plan last fall called "Transformation 2028."
The plan is two-fold: to strengthen academic affairs by reorganizing and realigning academic units, and to ensure the university is providing "the most in-demand, up-to-date and relevant academic programs and services" to students, Kent State’s Provost Melody Tankersley said in an announcement.
In Akron, Nemer said the days of public universities "being a mile wide and an inch deep" are over, and he's trying to set the university up for it's next 150 years.
The university sold off its regional campus in Medina and is shrinking its campus footprint. Nemer said the university has pared back on some of its smaller majors to shift more resources to growing academic programs.
Nemer said those moves have improved operating costs by 50% in the first year, Akron's debt is down, and enrollment is up for a second consecutive year, with 15,324 students enrolled this fall. It's the first time since 2011 that the university had back-to-back annual enrollment growth.
"I could sit in front of [Ramaswamy], hand on heart, and say, 'Here's what I'm already doing,'" Nemer said.
Higher education reporter Sheridan Hendrix can be reached at shendrix@dispatch.com and on Signal at @sheridan.120. You can follow her on Instagram at @sheridanwrites.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio universities face consolidation pressures as enrollment drops
