Youngstown State University President Bill Johnson said Monday his school is poised to offer summer and fall semester classes in Steubenville, but where that would happen remains to be seen.

Johnson said the Higher Learning Commission already has approved YSU’s application for a second operating location and he’d like it to be on Eastern Gateway Community College’s existing campus, but “there’s a process to go through, there are federal and state regulations associated with it, and EGCC has its own problems with unwinding.”

EGCC’s board of trustees last month announced the cash-strapped school will dissolve before Nov. 1, the result of a two-year battle with the U.S. Department of Education over how it had been using federal student aid dollars — sparking concern among county officials, who say taxpayers have a vested interest in what happens with the building and grounds.

The county-owned campus property was deeded to EGCC’s forerunner, Jefferson Technical Institute, in 1967 strictly for educational purposes, and a voter-approved levy generates about $1.3 million a year for the college, primarily to cover tuition for Jefferson County high school graduates to attend the school tuition free. The levy expires in 2026.

“We have to find out what the disposition of the current facility is going to be,” Johnson said. “Technically, it belongs to the county, but it was leased by Eastern Gateway Community College.”

“There’s a process,” he continued. “We’re governed by state regulations on how that gets resolved. I can’t tell you I know all the details — this is the first time it’s happened in anyone’s memory, that a state public institution like this has had to close down, so what’s happening are things that we’ve never seen happen before — there’s a lot of firsts going on right now.”

Johnson’s comments come as the Jefferson County commissioners were scheduled to gather today for a 9 a.m. closed-door meeting with Prosecutor Jane Hanlin, Assistant Prosecutor Shawn Blake, Auditor E.J. Conn and Assistant Auditor Mike Warren to discuss EGCC — specifically, the building, grounds and, presumably, special levy, all of which taxpayer’s have a stake in.

Commissioner Eric Timmons said Hanlin’s office requested the executive session, their second, to discuss the public’s interest as it pertains to EGCC. Timmons said he’s not sure of agenda specifics, but, “I would say there must be some additional information regarding our interest in the ongoing developments regarding EGCC.”

Timmons said they have no expectations for the meeting, “just learning new information and reacting accordingly.” Whether it leads to action afterward “depends on what the issue is” that they’ll be discussing, he said.

Johnson, meanwhile, said they’ve “stood up” 60 programs designed to address the needs of EGCC students pursuing certificates, workforce and associate degree course work.

“We’ll be teaching some of them this summer,” he said. “EGCC will also be teaching some this summer, they have to in order to get their share of state instructional funding dollars — they need the money to unwind their operation.

“Their accreditation expires Nov. 1 — we’ll be teaching some courses this summer and more this fall. It will be a work in progress for a while, but if you look at our enrollment numbers — we’ve gotten over 2,000 more applications, more than 2,000 more admittances. Scholarships are up. There are a lot of indicators that tell us we’re meeting the needs of a lot of EGCC students — including those that want to take college credit-plus courses in high school.”

Johnson said they’ve hit the ground running with summer classes and it won’t take long at all to reach full speed.

“There’ll be a lot more in the fall,” he said. “Part of the issue is these are all new programs, ones that we didn’t already have accreditation standards approved for — we had to get that approval to get accredited, and we’re in the process of doing that but it’s a process that just doesn’t happen overnight.

Johnson said their goal from the start “has been to provide a seamless path of continuous education and opportunity for the students of Jefferson County and the region beyond that EGCC serviced.” He said YSU’s curriculum will address local demand for work force training, credentials, certificates and associate degrees while creating opportunities for students to obtain bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees.

“By the time this is all finished, we’ll be the only four-year university in Ohio that provides a full spectrum” of educational options, he said.

Johnson also said:

Tuition will be “very close” to what students seeking workforce training, credentials, certificates and associate’s degrees would have paid at Eastern Gateway, noting they’ve developed a “tiered” tuition program to address those concerns. “We don’t want any of the EGCC-eligible students … to have sticker shock looking at tuition payments,” he said.

“I don’t think EGCC students will be unhappy at all, and that includes the cost for college credit-plus courses as well.”

He has no idea who on staff EGCC had terminated since trustees “paused” enrollments months ago, “but when the calls go out for staff, if they meet the qualifications — it won’t matter if they were let go by EGCC or not, they’ll be able to apply.”

“We’re going to have to staff up to teach classes there in Steubenville,” he said. “When that time comes and we have those numbers, we’re working on a teach out agreement now as we speak … as we do that and we identify staffing requirements we have, I feel fairly certain existing staff are going to compete favorably for those jobs.”

Said he’s not concerned that YSU’s projected growth will lead to the kind of growing pains EGCC experienced in its meteoric growth during the past five years, much of it fueled by online students and the school’s ill-fated free tuition partnership with labor unions across the country.

“They grew in a different way,” Johnson said, pointing out their increases “came with online students from all over the country.

“We’re not going to take people’s federal financial aid and redirect it or misdirect (it),” he said. “I don’t know the details of what got EGCC into that pickle, but we’ve got an established financial aid process here at YSU. Enrollment increases have nothing to do with how we manage our financial aid … we do it the same way for everybody.”

At the end of the day, Johnson said, “I think this is going to be a good thing: The people of Jefferson County are going to have access to a university system, YSU will be conducting operations in Steubenville somewhere, hopefully at the current place, but that’s a work in progress. And they will have access to whatever education needs have — whether that means credentials or certificates so they can work with building trades today, an associate’s degree or whether they want to pursue their bachelor’s, master’s or doctorate — they’ll be able to get all that from one school — YSU.”