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CHEYNEY, Pennsylvania (WPVI) -- Officials with Cheyney University are fighting to protect the school's reputation after it was put on probation last year.

University leaders say it sends a bad message and they're calling on a higher education commission to reconsider.

"Cheyney University demands justice, transparency and a fair resolution to this unwarranted probation," said Cheyney University President Aaron Walton.

Walton said the Middle States Commission on Higher Education placed the nation's first historically Black college on probation back in November 2023, despite making significant improvements over the past two years.

"The hard work and dedication of its students, faculty, and staff is undeniable, unprecedented and perhaps unimaginable for those of us who are not living it every single day," said Dr. Daniel Greenstein who is the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Chancellor.

However, the Commission said in a letter, the university's accreditation is in jeopardy because of "insufficient evidence" that the institution is in compliance several standards, including ethics and integrity, the learning experience and more.

Walton said the Commission's decision raises serious concerns about the accreditation process and highlights the need for a framework.

"We believe the action is unprecedented and unjust," said Walton. "The direct move to probation from the Middle States Commission, bypassing the typical warning phase, is not only unusual but contradicts the overwhelming positive evaluations from two visiting teams in 2023."

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro also expressed his frustration and urged the Commission to reverse the decision in a letter.

"Given the University's close work with the Commission's liaison and clear progress over the past several years, I believe Middle States erred in its hasty decision to place Cheyney on probationary status without rationale and without warning," said Shapiro.

Walton wants an urgent meeting with the Commission, university leaders and the U.S. Department of Education within 30 days to discuss a plan for the university to remove the probationary status.

"We will not rest until our voice is heard, progress is acknowledged and status is rightfully restored," Walton said.

The Commission requested a report from university leaders showing evidence that they're in compliance with the regulations. The report is due March 1.

An hour before its Feb. 23 Founder’s Day event to celebrate its 187th anniversary, Cheyney University — the country’s first HBCU — held a press conference where university leaders blasted the Middle States Commission on Higher Education’s (MSCHE’s) decision to place the university on probation.

Sen. Vincent Hughes (D- Philadelphia), a member of the university’s Council of Trustees, issued a warning for every Black institution of higher learning: “HBCUs all across the country: If you don’t stand with us now, it could come your way.”

In a letter to MSCHE, Gov. Josh Shapiro called the decision “hasty and premature.”

Although Cheyney remains fully accredited while on probation, the loss of accreditation would be a death knell for America’s oldest Black college, because it would render Cheyney ineligible to continue receiving federal and state financial aid. According to the university, 74% of students entering Cheyney in 2023-24 school year received federal Pell Grants, and overall, 70% of its students receive Pell Grants. As many as 94% of Cheyney students receive some form of financial aid.

MSCHE wrote to Cheyney in November explaining its rationale: It claims that the school’s “accreditation is in jeopardy because of insufficient evidence that the institution is currently in compliance” with various “standards” pertaining, but not limited, to having inadequate “resources” and being in need of “institutional improvements.”

It is quite interesting that MSCHE is, in large part, blaming Cheyney for having insufficient resources and for being in need of improvements. Cheyney — unlike Pennsylvania’s other 13 state-owned and predominantly white institutions — has faced numerous obstacles since its founding in 1837 when slavery was still the law of the land. And MSCHE should be advised that those obstacles didn’t stop in 1865 with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment.

Let’s review a few of those obstacles:

Fortunately, though, Gov. Shapiro — like former Gov. Tom Wolf who in 2017 said “Cheyney will not fail on my watch” — is totally aware and actively supportive. “I share Cheyney leadership’s disappointment with your refusal to reevaluate your decision-making that led to placing the university on probation and your disregard of established procedure,” Shapiro wrote in his Feb. 20 letter.

The governor makes a compelling point regarding “established procedure.” He was referring to MSCHE’s own established procedure. And during that Feb. 23 press conference, Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Chancellor Dan Greenstein pointed out that MSCHE’s decision “raises serious questions about the Commission’s procedural fairness.”

He also said he was “saddened, profoundly, that the Middle States Commission on Higher Education appears to have ignored the advice of its [own] visiting teams, which cited in their reports the measurable progress that Cheyney is making.”

MSCHE’s decision to place Cheyney on probation is not only questionable in terms of procedural due process but also in light of Cheyney’s recent impressive accomplishments. As Chancellor Greenstein said, “Cheyney University is engaged in one of the most remarkable turnarounds in U.S. higher education ever.”

He went on to note that Cheyney’s “hard work and dedication are showing up in measurable ways- in data on student enrollments, student progression, and the university’s overall financial condition, all of which have improved over these past few years.”

Cheyney has seen enrollment increases every year since 2019, including a 15% freshman increase this past fall. And in regard to Cheyney’s overall financial condition, the university has had balanced budgets in the last five consecutive years.

Accordingly, as emphasized by Gov. Shapiro, “It is critically important [that MSCHE] schedule an urgent meeting with representatives from Cheyney and the U.S. Department of Education to discuss a plan for Cheyney’s exit from probationary status.”

And, as he made clear, such a meeting is necessary for Cheyney to “revive its reputation” because “delaying these conversations will continue to have a harmful effect on this historic institution and most importantly on its students, which I am unwilling to accept as Pennsylvania’s Governor.”

Cheyney University is probably best known as the nation’s oldest historically Black university. But soon, it could also become known for something else — being a leader in biotech.

On Tuesday morning, Governor Tom Wolf announced that the state of Pennsylvania has awarded Cheyney University with a $5 million investment for a new initiative called “ThinkUbator” — a biotech incubator designed to bring biologics, cell, and gene therapy companies to the campus.

“ThinkUbator is helping to bring the life sciences community to the Cheney campus in a big way,” Wolf said. “This is a major step. Through partnerships that will advance groundbreaking research while also helping to train a whole new generation of life science leaders and innovators.”

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The money will be used to help build and renovate collaborative lab spaces for the companies to use — while offering students, who are normally underrepresented in the STEM fields, a chance to explore careers in science.

“This work is tremendously important because it positions our Cheyney university students to reduce the disparity that exists,” said Vanessa Atkins, director of the life sciences and technology hub at Cheyney University, “because Black Americans make up 11% of the total workforce, but only 6% of the life sciences workforce.”

Greg Reaves, the founder and co-owner of Mosaic Development Partners, which helped spearhead the project, described ThinkUbator as “the WeWork of labs.”

“They’re the highest quality labs that deal with a certain level of research that will give students here a significant leg up in opportunity in research,” Reaves said. “And we’re hoping that they’ll focus primarily on cell and gene therapy, which is a major emphasis of focus in this region that was incubated primarily by the University of Pennsylvania.”

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The project has so far enlisted four companies, but Reaves said they hope to expand that number to around 25.

“So you can imagine a work situation where a number of companies are in here operating,” he said. “They’re looking to grow their ecosystem as well, and they’re bringing students and learning as they’re growing. So it’s a really great model. We’re excited to be able to launch it here.”

Construction is expected to begin later this year.

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Cheyney University sits on 275 acres of former farmland at the base of a narrow and winding two-lane road in Pennsylvania’s affluent Chester County.

The 180-year-old school’s immaculate quad is ringed by a series of stone buildings built between 1903 and 1938. But behind the quad sit several shuttered structures, closed either because of shrinking enrollment or because they need to be torn down after years of neglect. On the edge of campus is the school’s now-quiet O’Shields Stevenson Football Stadium.

» GO DEEPER: Perilous times for black colleges

» FULL COVERAGE: The entire "HBCUs: A Threatened Heritage" series

The oldest historically black university in the country canceled its Thanksgiving Day football game against Alabama State last season. Cheyney couldn’t afford to send the team to Montgomery. Probably just as well, since the team finished 1-10 and was outscored 360-13 in its last six games.

The flagging football team and the closed buildings are fitting emblems of Cheyney. If there is a blueprint for what can go wrong at a college, Cheyney has followed it closely for about the past 20 years.

“Decrease in enrollment, instability in leadership and not paying significant attention to the bottom line,” President Aaron A. Walton, who took over as interim president in June, said recently about the school’s problems. “A lot of factors. Some of them are cultural, meaning that there was an assumption that the state would continue to support the school even if it was operating inefficiently.”

In August, the Board of Governors of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education agreed to forgive the $30 million in loans if the school can balance its budget during the next three years.

But that $30 million is not to be confused with a Justice Department investigation into the disposition of $29 million in mishandled federal grants, loans and work-study funds that were doled out to students who did not qualify for them, or in some cases were not even in school. (This was before Walton’s time.)

Customer service and efficiency on campus were so bad that more than 3,000 college applications mailed between 2012 and 2015 were never even opened. And while some students left the school with heavy debt, others were never charged as Cheyney failed to collect $7 million in outstanding tuition bills.

“I don’t think when I came here anybody had an expectation that the accreditation would be extended,” Walton said. “We had [been on probation] for two years and nothing had been done. We were on the last six months. It was serious.”

»MORE: Cheyney University - A History

‘You think I’m the man?’

It is lunchtime and James Mergile, a 24-year-old senior from Brooklyn, strolls through the school’s cafeteria like he owns it. He greets all of his fraternity brothers and hugs all the girls.

A visitor comments that he seems very popular.

“You think I am the man? Nah,” the psychology major said laughing. “I might look like the man, but we are so small now that everybody knows everybody.”

To address the dip in enrollment, previous administrations began accepting about 90 percent of students who applied to the school, filling classrooms with students who often were barely qualified for college work.

“Cheyney has always been a college of opportunity, which means that a lot of students may not have been academically prepared or financially prepared to go to college, but showed promise,” Walton said. “Which has had a negative effect on both retention and graduation rates because of the level of remediation that a lot of students require. That hurt the school. We still have to have to be here to serve those students, but there has to be a balance.”

Credit: Ernie Suggs

»MORE: Cheyney University - Notable Graduates

About 125 of Cheyney’s 755 students are in the elite Keystone Honors scholarship program, which covers their tuition, room and board and fees if they maintain their grades. Keystone has a 95 percent freshmen retention rate and a 72 percent four-year graduation rate.

But even with the Keystone students propping up the overall numbers, only 44 percent of freshmen made it to their sophomore year, and fewer than 20 percent of all students graduated within six years.

“The school and the professors don’t want to see anybody fail,” said Rashawn Frances, 22, a graduating senior from New York. “We are so isolated here that there is nothing to do but do your work and study. But if you want to party and then flunk out, that is on you.”

‘Didn’t come here to make friends’

It is hot in the president’s office, but the 70-year-old Walton refuses to sweat. He spent more than 40 years in Pittsburgh in the insurance business, specializing in turning around failing companies.

He lives on campus and gets around on a golf cart. It sits outside his office in the 79-year-old Biddle Hall and is free for anybody to use whenever they want. He eats with students in the cafeteria several times a week, is a frequent visitor at football practice and runs with the track team every morning.

Walton has never run a university, although he formerly served as a member of the state Board of Governors and chaired a task force that created a business plan for Cheyney. He says he can’t afford to waste time. And he isn’t.

Credit: Ernie Suggs

He isn’t a Cheyney graduate, knew very few people when he came on campus and was also freaked out about the narrow road leading to the campus. And that is a good thing, he says.

“There’s probably varying reactions to my being here. If you are personally impacted by some of the things that we had to do, then you are probably not overly happy with me,” Walton said. “And I’m not overly happy about having to do those things, but I know that if we don’t make change, Cheyney won’t exist. I didn’t come here to make friends. My sole focus is to turn this school around.”

Since June, he has laid off 23 staffers and administrators and is looking to get rid of at least eight faculty members as he reins in the budget. The school has fewer than 20 undergraduate degree programs and two master’s degree programs, and those numbers will also decrease.

Plans are in place to recruit better, more qualified students – who will pay their tuition. That would include casting a wider recruiting net and emphasizing agreements already in place to get students from community colleges.

After the losses from 2010 to 2015, there was about a 1 percent increase in freshmen last fall.

“It is not going to be easy, but what you have to do is at the same time that you’re cutting, you have to begin to look toward the future. You have to shrink to grow,” said Walton, who plans to retire in 2021 — after passing a balanced budget. “I believe that the potential here is unlimited and that in the next five to seven years Cheney will be a model institution. Period.”

During a candid budget hearing Thursday, lawmakers heard a bleak tale of Pennsylvania’s system of higher education.

In particular, Cheyney University risks losing its accreditation next year amid declining enrollment and growing debt.

Enrollment across the 14 state-owned schools has decreased by 18 percent since 2010, dropping to less than 100,000 students in fall 2018. Cheyney, the country’s oldest historically black college, has seen a particularly steep decline — dropping from 1,586 students in 2010 to 469 in 2018.

Public university enrollment is down nationwide, in part due to declining numbers of high school graduates.

Daniel Greenstein, who took over as chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education last fall, told the Senate Appropriations Committee that the universities are working on ways to attract more students and prepare them for the workforce, but made clear it will be difficult without more state funding.

“Next year is going to be a tough year,” said Greenfield. “You have to remember that our universities have been basically in recession management for well over a decade. There isn’t much left to cut.”

Over the past four years, the state has steadily increased funding for public universities, following six years of decreased or stagnant budgets, but funding remains lower compared to the start of the recession.

“We were essentially at the same place for funding 10 years ago as we are today,” State Sen. Judith Schwank, D-Berks, noted Thursday.

In 2018, the system received $468 million from the state, about 27 percent of its total budget. The average across the country is around 54 percent. Pennsylvania ranks 48 nationally for state share of public higher education funding.

Tuition hikes have made up for the gap, making Pennsylvania’s state universities considerably more expensive than the national average.

According to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, average in-state tuition at a public university is $6,131. In Pennsylvania, that price tag is $12,186.

That’s compared to $8,335 in Delaware, $9,338 in New Jersey, $6,226 in Ohio, $6,870 in New York, and $5,650 in West Virginia.

In some states, including California, Texas, and Washington, the rates public colleges charge for non-residents is cheaper than Pennsylvania’s in-state tuition.

Greenstein told senators that this puts the state-owned universities in competition not only with private and community colleges, but also with state schools nationwide. He estimated that the system will soon face a $70 million deficit, and said funding gaps cannot be made up by increasing tuition without alienating students from low- and moderate-income families.

Senator Scott Martin, (R-Lancaster), questioned whether the university system has done enough to streamline operations. As student enrollment has decreased by 18 percent, staff reduced by just 8 percent, he said.

“We have not yet done everything we can to align our budgets with our revenues,” said Greenstein. Increasing retention and enrollment is a priority, he said, in part by looking to attract new students. He also spoke of working with the faculty union on a phased retirement plan for long-serving staff.

At the same time, he said the greatest tuition decreases could come from Pennsylvania increasing its state contribution to the national average. If they did so, said Greenstein, the system could lower tuition to around $9,500. That would require an additional $666 million in state subsidies.

“These are public policy choices,” said Greenstein. “Those are choices we have made in this state and they are choices which, frankly, over ten years, in my opinion, will be devastating to pathways into and beyond the middle class, and ultimately the workforce.”

The state budget for PASSHE is currently $468 million. The system requested an increase in state aid of almost $38 million, or 8 percent. Governor Tom Wolf has proposed an increase of $7 million.

Last week, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Stan Saylor, (R-York), seemed to lay the public university systems’ problems at its own feet, telling Greenstein at a separate budget hearing that lawmakers have “lost faith” in the system.

“In many cases, you can go to other schools at a cheaper cost than you can to our state system, and we have to get back to that if we want the system to survive,” he said.

This week, by contrast, lawmakers thanked Greenstein for his candor, and asked questions about how the universities can better compete for students.

State Sen. Vincent Hughes, laid the blame with lawmakers.

“Governors and legislatures have failed the system dramatically,” he said.

Hughes, a trustee at Cheyney University, also questioned Greenstein about the future of that institution. Greenstein gave a harsh assessment, citing six-year graduation rates of just 15-25 percent, with nearly a third of students defaulting on their loans.

“These are in my opinion the most deserving students we enroll in the system, and we are delivering results for them that are weak,” he said.

Cheyney owes $43 million in debt to the public university system, which Greenstein plans to pay down with the proceeds from other campuses. He says it will likely incur another $9 to $10 million in debt this year. Those debts have put Cheyney’s accreditation in danger, which would mean the school could no longer grant degrees.

Greenstein laid out three possible paths for the university: continue as is, which he dismissed as unviable; closure, which he called “the wrong thing to do.”

Or, Greenstein said, “acknowledge the likelihood that the university will lose accreditation” later this year, and pivot to another educational model.

“There is real innovation in higher education today in arenas that do not require accreditation,” said Greenstein, pointing to various forms of workforce training or technical education. “The potential opportunity for Cheyney not only to survive and thrive, but to create a model that others may need to follow into the future is very high.”

Hughes pushed back on that interpretation, pointing to increased applications and deposits by accepted students over the previous year.

“The notion of HBCUs is not predicated on hard and fast numbers. It’s predicated on a history of discrimination that required a place to be in position to educate folks who could not be educated elsewhere by law,” Hughes said.

Last year, the university opened two new institutes to try to reverse declining numbers, and began to invest more in recruitment. Greenstein appeared to be skeptical.

“I wish the chancellor would have been more optimistic in his comments,” said Hughes when reached after the hearing.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Patrick Browne, (R-Lehigh), closed the meeting with a call to action.

“None of this is going to happen unless we make some hard decisions. And I think we’ve been in denial for a long time,” he said. “We’re just treading water. And, if we keep treading water, the only people at risk will be our young people that really need the value of a higher education institution, and we have the assets here to do it.”

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