A week after Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy doubled down on his push to reform the state’s public universities, Kent State University President Todd Diacon delivered a message: “Come visit.”
Though Diacon didn’t explicitly mention Ramaswamy by name in an essay on the future of Ohio higher education published April 28, there’s no mistaking who he’s talking about.
The piece’s headline and its lead sentence included the phrase “centers of excellence,” the same words Ramaswamy used to describe what he wants the state’s 14 universities to become amid enrollment and financial challenges. His calls to consolidate sparked pushback from his Democratic rival, Dr. Amy Acton, and others across the state.
“The idea of ‘centers of excellence’ has entered Ohio’s higher education conversation, and I welcome it,” Diacon wrote in a message sent via email to the university community and posted online.
Ohio’s university presidents rarely talk publicly – even tangentially – about politics. Public institutions rely on state support. Diacon didn’t touch on the gubernatorial race, instead simply writing that he wanted to give “some context that the current debate is missing.”
“We are not waiting for someone to tell us to change,” he wrote. “We’ve reduced our budget, and balanced it, every year save one during the past 30 years, and we did so without drawing on reserves to cover revenue shortfalls.”
Diacon concluded the piece by inviting “anyone raising questions about Ohio’s public universities” to spend time on one of Kent State’s eight campuses across Northeast Ohio – or even that of another public peer – to better understand these schools.
Ramaswamy spokesperson Evan Machan didn’t respond to Signal Statewide’s question about whether the candidate plans to take Diacon up on his offer to makea campus visit. He did say, though, that the campaign is “excited to partner with the leaders of universities across our state to understand where our universities are excelling and where we have room to improve.”
Ramaswamy’s calls to consolidate begin in March
Ramaswamy first floated the idea of combining public universities in March. He described it as one area where Ohio could cut excess spending to save money.
“When you consolidate them, they can actually be centers of excellence, who are actually the best in their respective domains instead of trying to create replicas and clones of one another throughout the state,” he said in a video shared online by his campaign.
He shared more thoughts in a Columbus Dispatch opinion piece a few weeks later. It mentioned the state’s dwindling number of high school graduates and pointed out other states with larger populations have fewer public universities.
If elected governor, Ramaswamy would require the Ohio Department of Higher Education to conduct a thorough review that would identify “where missions overlap, where enrollment collapse has made independence untenable, and where administrative functions can be unified without harming students,” he wrote.
“Either we reform our higher education system with purpose, or we watch it decline by default,” he wrote.
Looking at enrollment across Ohio’s public universities
Kent State’s Diacon wrote that total enrollment across the state’s public universities is “roughly the same” now as it was in 2005.
Data from the Ohio Department of Higher Education supports that claim. The state’s university system enrolled 264,400 full-time students in 2005, dropping by just 0.2% to 263,854 students in 2025.
Few changes are noticeable when looking at those beginning and ending figures alone – but the years tucked inside contain more storylines.
One of the biggest includes the enrollment ebbs and flows that colleges in Ohio and nationwide experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, which disproportionately affected people of color and/or women. Enrollments at many institutions, especially two-year public colleges, plunged during that time, though national data shows those rates may be rebounding.
Another shift: The state’s biggest institutions got bigger. The growth was most explosive at the University of Cincinnati. Its main campus grew by a whopping 60%, going from 22,389 students to 35,928 students. Last year, UC’s Cincinnati campus and Ohio State University’s Columbus campus accounted for about 36% of all students enrolled at a main campus in Ohio.
Growth was more modest at places such as Kent State, where enrollment grew by 9.4% from 20,713 students to 22,664 students. Ohio University saw an uptick of nearly 16%, moving from 20,920 students to 24,264 students.
Smaller universities saw more magnified declines. Enrollment at the University of Akron fell nearly 40% from 17,839 students to 10,802 students. The University of Toledo enrolled about 32% fewer students, going from 18,547 students to 12,673 students. Shawnee State University, in the Southern Ohio city of Portsmouth, saw about a 22% decline as its enrollment fell from 3,273 students to 2,567 students.
And at the state’s two dozen regional campuses, total enrollment fell by about 14.5% from 33,909 students to 28,993 students.
It’s important to note that regional public universities tend to enroll more part-time students, including working adults.
Kent State’s Diacon touts university successes amid declining state support
Diacon’s essay also outlined what he views as some of Kent State’s biggest successes.
He pointed to individual academic programs, including healthcare, and how those programs prepare both local and national workforces. He also nodded to the university’s role as the region’s only public university to earn a prestigious national distinction recognizing its high scientific research output.
It wasn’t just a love letter, though. Diacon also called out how state financial support has dwindled since Republican Gov. James Rhodes launched the statewide university system in the 1960s. Back then, about 75% of Kent State’s operating budget came from state allocations, he wrote. Now, Diacon reports that number has shrunk to roughly 22%.
“The universities didn’t drift into this moment,” he wrote. “Even though public investment was quietly withdrawn over decades, our institutions have continued to deliver ever-improving results.”
