After several years of failing financial health and subpar care, Eastern Gateway Community College in Youngstown and Steubenville finds itself on life support, waiting for its final plug to be pulled in two short months.

With its demise, thousands of EGCC students could find themselves left behind as hapless victims.

They have become victims of poor leadership at the community college over the past eight years under disgraced President Jimmie Bruce who was fired amid scandal and President / CFO Michael J. Geoghegan who ended his tenure last summer after a series of questionable decisions and a blistering vote of no confidence among administrators.

Now as EGCC stands on the precipice of no longer existing as we know it, those students risk potentially new and even more troubling victimization as their assumptions of graduating with a reputable job-qualifying degree go up in smoke.

Fortunately, however, Youngstown State University has emerged as a viable lifesaver for completion of their academic careers. To its credit, as the nearest university to EGCC’s Youngstown campus, YSU has taken a lead role in rolling out the red carpet to welcome into its fold the refugees of EGCC.

Bill Johnson, who took the helm as president of YSU only two months ago, has received a baptism by fire. Ever since EGCC’s announcement last month of a “pause” or end to student registrations after this spring semester, Johnson’s leadership acumen has been tested to the core. From our perspective, thus far he has passed that test with flying colors.

“YSU cares deeply about the people in our region, and we are honored to work with Eastern Gateway and the Ohio Department of Higher Education to support students,” Johnson said.

Toward those ends, Johnson and other YSU administrators have been working closely with EGCC, ODHE and others to achieve what they vow will be a “seamless transition” to admission to the traditional four-year college. For the sake of students, that vow must become reality.

YSU administrators, faculty and others must remain in fast-forward mode to achieve that lofty goal by this summer and fall. The fate of some 15,000 students who reportedly started the 2023-24 academic year at the community college hangs in the balance.

To lessen or eliminate their status as victims, several practical goals should be prioritized. They include:

● Ensuring EGCC-specific programs become available to transfer students. Johnson and others have reportedly been working with faculty and academic departments to tailor as much programming as possible to the needs of the expected influx of transfers in the fall. If YSU cannot itself offer certain disciplines, it must reinforce its commitment to assist students by finding those programs at other regional community colleges in eastern Ohio.

● Maximizing convenience for new students through several initiatives, including opening of a branch YSU campus in Steubenville, ideally in familiar EGCC infrastructure there. It also would serve EGCC’s Mahoning Valley students well to consider keeping the lights on at its downtown Youngstown Valley Center buildings.

● Striving to lessen any sticker shock in tuition costs for transfer students. The cost differential between the two institutions is monumental: One credit hour of instruction at EGCC costs $138 compared with $340 for one hour of credit at YSU. Affordability, after all, always has been one of EGCC’s strongest calling cards.

● Working to assimilate some of the hundreds of displaced full- and part-time faculty and other workers at the Steubenville and Youngstown campuses. The EGCC help website now directs those workers to unemployment compensation office. Surely they deserve better.

● Folding EGCC’s popular College Credit Plus program into YSU’s own CCP operations. The program that enables high school students to earn college credit early had about 2,000 enrollees at EGCC in Youngstown and Steubenville at last count.

Clearly, these and other critical needs are and will continue to be herculean tasks if they are to be achieved successfully. But if they pan out as hoped, YSU would stand to gain much in return.

First, the university could witness a significant boost in enrollment to reverse recent years of steady declines. Such growth, in turn, could facilitate an uptick in academic programming, state financial aid and overall university prestige.

Those perks aside, all stakeholders at YSU must remain aggressively vigilant and solidly focused on resuscitating the academic careers of thousands of rightly frustrated EGCC students. Toward that end, we wish the university nothing but success.