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According to Cleveland Plain Dealer, Vivek Ravaswamy (sp) wants to consolidate schools.

I recall a movement in the early 2000's to combine UT and BGSU having considerable traction. At any rate..he's probably right, but who's going to make that call?

Eventually that leads us down the road of closing campuses, and think about how much that impacts the local economies of these communities. I'm sure the restaurant and bar owners in BG would be thrilled if there wasn't a university anymore.

Flipper wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 10:00 am I recall a movement in the early 2000's to combine UT and BGSU having considerable traction. At any rate..he's probably right, but who's going to make that call?

State legislature would probably have to vote on it since the universities receive state funding. Certainly if Vivek wins and the state legislature leans conservative it's possible it could happen. My opinion it would be a massive mistake for Ohio and likely drive away future economic investments.

Sorry I put this under basketball by mistake. Don't really know what consolidating schools means in this case. It could be campuses stay the same but , majors offered at two close schools would not be duplicated. Who decides? Or it could mean that campuses close permanently to save all of the costs of keeping them open. BG and UT are very close. So are Akron and Kent with Cleveland State being a bit farther. Wright State and Cincinnati are both within an hour of Miami. Only OSU, OU and Youngstown State seen to be farther from other schools. Anyway, I think it would be a tough political move for the legislature.

I feel like ohio has a lot of D3 and D2 schools compared to other states. Lourdes is closing and I could see some of those expensive small private schools closing like siena heights in Michigan. I would let it happen naturally though

fanatic13 wrote: ↑Thu Mar 19, 2026 11:56 am I feel like ohio has a lot of D3 and D2 schools compared to other states. Lourdes is closing and I could see some of those expensive small private schools closing like siena heights in Michigan. I would let it happen naturally though

Agreed. As people have less kids it will shrink regardless and occur naturally with the smallest schools. I see the Bluffton’s of the world in trouble, but a massive state university should be fine. The much much bigger issue is at the high school level. We’re going to see a serious wave of consolidation in the coming decades for this state

My take: First of all, Vivek who tf asked you? Is the university system broken? No! So don't fix it. Ohio universities emerged organically and provide a rich diversity of options. Nobody needs this consolidation. You're going to lose to Amy Acton any. Go be a billionaire somewhere else and leave Ohioans alone.

BleedOrange wrote: ↑Fri Mar 20, 2026 11:09 am My take: First of all, Vivek who tf asked you? Is the university system broken? No! So don't fix it. Ohio universities emerged organically and provide a rich diversity of options. Nobody needs this consolidation. You're going to lose to Amy Acton any. Go be a billionaire somewhere else and leave Ohioans alone.

God I hope you're right, but I think Ohioans are bound and determined to become Alabama of the north. The one saving grace could be his name being Vivek may prevent the insane racism of this state to keep him at bay.

I fully expect him to be our next Governor though because Ohioans mostly suck.

What’s your solution to the huge escalation cost of higher education? The market place needs more individuals in trades. I believe every state school is operating at a deficit within athletics. BGSU has forecast and been approved by the trustees to operate with an estimated deficit of greater than 7 million dollars in 2026. Vivek might not be your cup of tea but throwing more tax dollars towards this, without considering consolidation would be a mistake. The crunch is already on going, Notre Dame, Lourdes, Urbana, Antioch and others with serious financial issues: Bluffton, Central State, Wittenberg. Higher education needs students for enrollments but the population shifts and the job market has some schools searching for a solution. BGSU and Ohio U have done well maintaining enrollments others not so much.

OSUFALCON wrote: ↑Sun Mar 22, 2026 12:37 am What’s your solution to the huge escalation cost of higher education? The market place needs more individuals in trades. I believe every state school is operating at a deficit within athletics. BGSU has forecast and been approved by the trustees to operate with an estimated deficit of greater than 7 million dollars in 2026. Vivek might not be your cup of tea but throwing more tax dollars towards this, without considering consolidation would be a mistake. The crunch is already on going, Notre Dame, Lourdes, Urbana, Antioch and others with serious financial issues: Bluffton, Central State, Wittenberg. Higher education needs students for enrollments but the population shifts and the job market has some schools searching for a solution. BGSU and Ohio U have done well maintaining enrollments others not so much.

This is not intended to be political, just factual, but I know it’s going to come across that way. I’ve worked in higher education for a majority of my career and there are two big reasons for the escalating cost. #2 is administrative bloat with high salaries. BG is actually one of the more reasonable with their higher tier salaries but all universities have way too many front office employees (I say this as someone who is guilty of being on that side, but at least I’m revenue producing). The #1 reason is that states stopped throwing tax dollars at higher education. That is what kept costs low for decades (that, and not paying college teachers a livable wage), then in the 1980s, state governments started slowly cutting taxes to the wealthy and corporations, which resulted in funding cuts to state universities.

So in my opinion, the solution is exactly throwing more tax dollars at education, while also assessing what high salary roles are actually necessary.

Accountability has been lacking for a long time. You can change coaches, you can change AD’s, same mediocre to bad athletics with much higher salaries. The culture stays the same. The results are now headed to the worst collectively we’ve maybe ever seen.

When they ask for more money this week ask why salaries went up 9% this year when they need money for NIL to get competitive again.

guest44 wrote: ↑Mon Mar 23, 2026 7:43 am Accountability has been lacking for a long time. You can change coaches, you can change AD’s, same mediocre to bad athletics with much higher salaries. The culture stays the same. The results are now headed to the worst collectively we’ve maybe ever seen.

When they ask for more money this week ask why salaries went up 9% this year when they need money for NIL to get competitive again.

Exactly! Ditto many times. Teacher’s salaries have been getting corrected at many schools but probably not fast enough. Too much administrative cost for the lack of return generated. 9% is considerably too much. Quest44 what’s your source on this?

I just use the proposed budgets. in 2025 athletics salaries budgeted an increase by 12.1%. In 2026 they were budgeted at a 7.6% increase. I used 9% to roughly split the difference. The links are below. Shouldn't the department themselves be making sacrifices to help with NIL?

2026 https://www.bgsu.edu/content/dam/pdfs/f ... 7-2025.pdf

2025 https://www.bgsu.edu/content/dam/BGSU/f ... fy2025.pdf

hammb wrote: ↑Fri Mar 20, 2026 11:22 am God I hope you're right, but I think Ohioans are bound and determined to become Alabama of the north. The one saving grace could be his name being Vivek may prevent the insane racism of this state to keep him at bay.

I fully expect him to be our next Governor though because Ohioans mostly suck.

What cracks me up about college consolidation talk is why aren’t we addressing our local school system first? We have so many small school districts around us that could easily be consolidated into each other. Eventually the small universities like Lourdes (RIP) will die off and that should provide some stability for the larger state institutions. Sadly population shrink is going to be a big hit to states like ours in the upcoming decades.

Politically speaking though I’m not shocked Ohio has turned the way it has, the Democratic Party has become too coastal after 8 years of a president from Illinois. It’s turned the Midwest more red and less purple in the last 10 years