MSU leader says accreditation loss could close school - WOWK 13 Charleston, Huntington WV News, Weather, Sports

Mountain State University students were delivered a dose of bad news Thursday evening at a forum with Interim President Richard Sours.

"Basically, he outlined for them what is going on with the appeal process, what we're trying to do for them in terms of lining up their options for what to do going forward," said MSU Director of Public Relations Andrew Wessels. "Basically the message is that unless you have just a couple of credit hours to finish up before you get your degree, we are working with students and working with other colleges and universities to transfer students from Mountain State.

"At this point, we're not accepting any new applications."

Sours said MSU is expecting a sharp decrease in revenue due to the pending loss of its general accreditation and halt in enrollment. He said the school,which has several branch campuses in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, could eventually shut down. 

Approximately 89 percent of Mountain State's revenue in fiscal 2011 came from student charges, and 81 percent of its undergraduate students received financial aid, Moody's Investors Service has said. Moody's downgraded the university's bond rating last week.

"Our situation is serious enough that the possibility of Mountain State closing is real," Sours said in an Associated Press story.

Layoffs are imminent and the university plans to liquidate some property and assets, he said.

"The reality is our enrollment, and hence our revenue, is going to be way down in the fall, so we have to downsize our budget," he said.

The Higher Learning Commission announced it would withdraw accreditation from the private, Beckley-based Mountain State University earlier this month. The school has filed an appeal.

Wessels said any potential students who had just applied after graduating from high school have received refunds for application fees and housing deposits.

The forum was broadcast online for students outside Beckley.

"What Dr. Sours said was the students need to be realistic at this point," Wessels said. "At this point, with our appeal process, that may extend our accreditation into the fall.

"We're also asking the Higher Learning Commission if we can extend the accreditation to the end of June 2013 which would allow us to help more students finish out their degrees."

Wessels said the MSU administration has to "wait and see," but they are encouraging students with a significant number of credit hours left to finish their degrees to transfer to other institutions.

Wessels said the school will continue to post new information for students and faculty to its website, and a formal "teach-out plan" will be compiled by the middle of next week, but there are no formal plans for any other forums.

A forum for faculty and staff took place earlier in the week.

At the Beckley-Raleigh County Chamber of Commerce, President and Chief Executive Officer Ellen Taylor said she also is waiting to see, along with the MSU community and the area business community.

"I hold out hope that that appeal might be successful," she said. "If it is not, our wish would be somebody comes in and takes over the university."

Taylor said MSU is a major employer, and if it folds entirely, students and employees would be deeply affected.

"They all have homes, expenses, all those kinds of things, and they spend their money at other businesses, so it absolutely will have an effect," Taylor said. "They still have their employees employed, but at some point in time, we suspect there will be some layoffs and things."

Taylor said if there are layoffs, the chamber would react and probably establish some kind of network to post available jobs.

"Right now, we're just kind of waiting to see if their appeal will be successful, and it's our greatest hope that it would be," she said. "They've made a lot of changes, we think, responded to the HLC's request to make changes, and we're just kind of holding our breath and hoping it'll turn out OK.

"If not, then whatever role that there is for the chamber to play, we will."

Taylor said the region has never experienced anything such as this before, and she described it as "unknown territory."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.