Ex-chancellor: New plan might have stopped Tennessee Promise

Days after stepping down as leader of Tennessee's biggest college system, John Morgan said Gov. Bill Haslam's plan to overhaul higher education could have thwarted the progress of the governor's celebrated Tennessee Promise scholarship program.

Morgan had already become the most outspoken critic of Haslam's plan to create independent governing boards for the six four-year universities managed by the Tennessee Board of Regents, even before Morgan resigned his post as the system's chancellor at the end of January. But now, during an interview with The Tennessean, Morgan was more forceful in his criticism.

Morgan said that if those six universities, which include Middle Tennessee State, Tennessee State and Austin Peay State universities, had their own boards when the governor launched Tennessee Promise, they probably would have fought the plan to provide high school graduates tuition-free community or technical college.

"Had this new structure been in place when the governor introduced the idea of Tennessee Promise, I think it's doubtful it would've passed," Morgan said. "Had (the universities) not been part of the system, I suspect that they would've been pretty aggressively trying to encourage legislators not to support it. And understandably so."

When Tennessee Promise students enrolled last fall, there was a 24.7 percent increase in full-time freshmen at community colleges and a 20 percent jump at technical colleges. But Board of Regents universities saw an 8.4 percent drop in the same category, which was a bit sharper than expected.

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Morgan said Haslam's new higher education plan — which would leave the Board of Regents with 13 community colleges and 27 technical colleges — would encourage individual universities to fight statewide initiatives that might threaten their individual enrollment or other goals.

When Haslam first proposed Tennessee Promise in 2014, some university leaders expressed concern that the scholarship program could siphon off some of their students, but they ultimately supported it and began working with community colleges to clear the way for an upcoming wave of transfer students.

"There will be something else like Tennessee Promise that from a state perspective is really a good idea,"

Morgan said. He said that partnerships between universities and community colleges "won't happen if you really have universities that are focused solely on their own aspirations."

Haslam spokeswoman Jennifer Donnals said by email Wednesday that growth of the Board of Regents system, driven by the success of Tennessee Promise, motivated the change, which will come before the legislature this year as part of the Focus on College and University Success, or FOCUS, Act.

"When the Tennessee Board of Regents was formed in 1972, it had 60,000 students. We are now approaching 200,000 students in the system," Donnals said. "Times have changed, and it’s critical we address the needs of each student and every school. The FOCUS Act will make sure our colleges and universities are organized and empowered in the best way to increase student success."

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During the interview, Morgan questioned Haslam's motivation.

The University of Memphis has lobbied for its own board for many years, but past governors chose not to move forward. During a recent meeting with The Tennessean editorial board, Haslam said the University of Memphis had put the issue on his radar.

Morgan dismissed the Haslam administration's explanation about the growth of the system as a "conclusion looking for a justification," noting that community colleges had higher enrollments during the Great Recession, when Tennesseans flooded to college to get extra job training.

"I kept hoping that there was some sort of higher ed benefit to be drawn from this," Morgan said. "I hope there's something else there."

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Morgan fast-tracked his retirement plans because of the proposal, which he called "unworkable" in his resignation letter. During the interview, he worried that other systemwide efforts, including course redesigns and a yearslong shift to a change in remedial classes, would become much harder to execute under Haslam's plan.

"It's disheartening because we really had things going," Morgan said. "That's what a system can do."

Reach Adam Tamburin at 615-726-5986 and on Twitter @tamburintweets.