Todd Diacon has a question: Is college still worth it?
The Kent State University president, of course, believes it is.
He wants everyone to have that same takeaway, too. It’s why Diacon and the university are talking about the value of higher education through a series of online videos and other content – right as the future of the state’s universities gets debated amid an election year.
“Over the last 20 years, public higher education in Ohio has been a strong success story,” he said. “So far from this narrative that it seems, to me, like we hear mostly about challenges in higher ed.”
Universities have come under fire on several fronts in recent years, including receiving more scrutiny from both federal and state lawmakers. In March 2026, Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy cited declining enrollment as one of the driving factors behind his plan to consolidate some of the state’s 14 public universities.
Diacon seemingly issued a public invite to Ramaswamy – without mentioning him by name – to visit Kent State soon after those plans were introduced.
Now, roughly seven months later, the president again doesn’t mention the candidate when asked if this push to talk about the value of a Kent State education is connected to the consolidation conversation – though he acknowledges the attention the state’s universities have recently received.
“In any year when you have campaigns for office, if higher ed becomes a talking point, then it thrusts you more into the public eye,” he said.
But Diacon said he’s not trying to “wade into political debates.” Few college presidents are, especially in the current climate.
“I’m just talking about our numbers, our performance, and gently trying to correct any misunderstandings or misstatements,” he said.
Diacon discusses topics such as artificial intelligence, fewer students in video series
Diacon is making this case for higher education through a new online multimedia series.
Universities in Ohio and beyond are increasingly turning out their own social media content. One higher education consulting firm recently spelled it out this way for college leaders: “To win attention (and subsequent enrollment), you have to showcase what makes your school unique through great creative, authentic user-generated content, and powerful stories.”
This Kent State series centers on a conversation between Diacon and Bryan Alexander, a Georgetown University professor who’s written about the future of higher education. Kent State officials said they didn’t pay Alexander for his participation.
The pair cover seven higher education hot topics, ranging from Ohio’s dwindling number of 18-year-olds to the role of artificial intelligence at a university.
The online presentation of that discussion is sleek. It allows users to navigate between short videos of Diacon and Alexander talking, lines of written text and lots of university-supplied data points.
Scroll around long enough and you’ll learn when the university’s enrollment peaked (in 2012, with 42,513 students), how many Kent State students graduate with no student loan debt (nearly 40%) and what the university says is the economic return on every state dollar invested (about $10).
Kent State budget sees big drop in state funding support since the 1970s
Each section couples points of Kent State-specific context with historical information about Ohio’s higher ed landscape. All – even the pithy URL of kent.edu/worthit – support Diacon’s main point about amplifying the value of Kent State and higher education as a whole.
That includes a portion devoted to tackling the question of who pays for the state’s universities. In the 1970s, officials said, state funding covered about two-thirds of the university budget. Now, they say, it’s down to about 22%.
“When people ask why tuition costs what it costs, this is the answer no one talks about: Public universities didn’t get expensive; their public funding declined,” they wrote.
The university’s sharing this work on its social media channels. Diacon said the target audience for this series is “anyone who is interested in higher ed,” including current and potential students, their families, alumni and elected officials.
Diacon said his hope is that this work influences how people think and talk about Kent State – including, it seems, when it comes to potential policy decisions.
“We’re team players,” he said. “We will always do what’s best for the state of Ohio. But I would just want any future conversations about higher ed and public higher ed in Ohio to be driven by data and by facts more than by politics.”
