COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio Republican candidate for governor Vivek Ramaswamy is changing his tune on shutting down "subpar" universities after facing bipartisan backlash.
At a town hall event in Strongsville on Friday, Ramaswamy pushed back against claims he wanted to shut down universities and use the savings toward eliminating the state’s income tax. He is now saying he never wanted to close the colleges, but rather close programs within the colleges.
"I think that we have too many duplicative programs in our universities," Ramaswamy said. "When I look at a region, I want to look at Ohio in terms of regions like regional governance; I want every region to have the best higher education institutions available for people in that region. But not every university needs to offer every program."
An attendee had asked whether it was true he wanted to "shut some schools." He repeatedly denied it, saying it was "incorrect."
He wants to have the best nursing, computer science, civil engineering and humanities programs in the country, he added.
"They just don't have to be under the same exact roof in the same college," he said. "I want every region to offer the best of those, but for us to consolidate some of these programs in the best interests of our students."
Ramaswamy believes that universities will reduce their overall costs by offering fewer programs.
Looking back: What did he say in his previous comments?
"We have too many of them," the Republican said in a video posted to his Threads account in March. "They need to be consolidated."
RELATED: Vivek Ramaswamy still focused on shutting down 'subpar' Ohio universities
In an opinion article he wrote for The Columbus Dispatch, Ramaswamy encouraged shutting down what he called struggling universities. He referred to Cleveland State, the University of Akron, Kent State and Central State University as having previous challenges.
He tripled down on that idea in April.
"I don't think you should be funding subpar universities," Ramaswamy said to a student asking a question at a Turning Point USA event.
Colleges shouldn’t replicate each other, he said, and the strongest programs should be the ones to survive.
Backlash came swiftly, including from his own party members, like Gov. Mike DeWine and Senate Finance Chair Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland), who is a leader in higher education reform.
"What do you make of this? Do you think that there's gonna be trouble if he becomes governor and you will fight with that, or do you think that schools should be consolidating?" I asked Cirino in late June.
"Well, so, there are a number of questions in that, so I'll try to address them ... I don't know how much he knows about how higher ed works in the state of Ohio," Cirino said.
Cirino said that he would look forward to a discussion with Ramaswamy. He said consolidation could be discussed, but more for the additional branches of colleges, not the main campuses.
"I think there needs to be the right minds put together in a room for a while to try to figure out how we can not sacrifice delivery of higher ed or any post-secondary, but not maintain the costs that we have today with an infrastructure that was suited to the 1960s," Cirino said.
If true consolidation, and not the end of funding for "subpar" universities was what Ramaswamy meant, Cirino said that would be met with greater acceptance, as he has been in favor of getting rid of majors with low enrollment.
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Ramaswamy's gubernatorial opponents oppose this because Ohio has colleges across the state to ensure students have access to a nearby, quality university.
Democratic candidate for governor Amy Acton’s running mate, David Pepper, said this shows how out of touch Ramaswamy is with the everyday Ohioan, pointing out that the Republican came up with the idea of cutting college funding to help pay for a total income tax cut.
"A tax break that helps everyone at the top, and students, particularly in poor communities, are told by Vivek Ramaswamy, 'Get in the car, go pay room and board hundreds of miles away, because I'm gonna deprive you of the local opportunity you have to get a degree,'" Pepper said.
While defending his opinion article, Ramaswamy said the universities he mentioned were just "examples of where tuition was going up."
"It's a big leap from that to say if you should shut down a university," Ramaswamy said, as the attendee questioned his stance further. "But are there individual programs that we might say, 'OK, this one belongs to this university and this one belongs to this university within a given region — that I do favor."
University presidents weighed in
The candidate noted that university leaders probably don't like his idea.
Both CSU and KSU's presidents have rebuked his stance.
"We need to honor the identity of our public universities, which were formed for specific purposes to meet the needs of their region. All options need to be discussed — there are many ways to think about programs and strategic partnerships that are far short of consolidation and achieve the goals of being more nimble, efficient institutions of higher education," Cleveland State's president Dr. Laura Bloomberg said in April.
Kent State University President Dr. Todd Diacon took a more assertive approach, providing an extensive response to "anyone raising questions about Ohio’s public universities."
"In the decade of the 1960s, we built 60 new buildings. Those buildings were filled with the sons and daughters of the Greatest Generation, ready to build Ohio’s future," Diacon wrote, in part. "This was not a waste. This was Ohio investing in itself."
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