ateway Community College has been playing defense for the past 30 months, that’s because it has.

From the ouster of the college’s former president in January 2020 for what board members at the time described as his “dereliction of duty and inappropriate management” and “lack of leadership” to the Higher Learning Commission’s decision in November to slap probationary status on the college’s accreditation, and then the Department of Education’s July 18 edict suspending enrollments in the college’s Free College Benefit program, it’s been anything but smooth sailing for the college community.

Gloom and doom aside, EGCC President Michael Geoghegan insists the college “must be doing something right.”

“We have nearly doubled our faculty and staff complement over this period,” he said. “Our financials are strong, and we are well-positioned for the future.”

But that, of course, assumes the college survives the grueling probation-to-accreditation process and that it can satisfy DOE’s concerns about the free college program — neither of which is a given.

Geoghegan insists “preparations are going very well” for the HLC on-site visit, which will happen sometime between February and April.

HLC President Barbara Gellman-Dansey had provided the college with a detailed, 10-page checklist of issues that must be addressed to regain full accreditation; the college has until Feb. 1 to “provide evidence (they’ve) addressed the issues that led to the sanction” in advance of HLC’s on-site visit. Then, in November 2023, HLC’s board will decide if the college has demonstrated compliance and whether probation can be lifted.

In her critique, Gellman-Dansey took aim at EGCC’s meteoric growth — from about 3,000 students in 2015 to a little more than 47,000 in 2021, most of them online — claiming that while revenues increased “the institution presented no evidence to support that the present business model provides a high-quality educational experience for students. Concerns have been raised about faculty and staff hiring and development; the number of full-time faculty for several academic programs; lead faculty to adjunct faculty ratios; student dissatisfaction with the quality of advising and engagement with adjunct faculty; lack of ongoing, consistent review of learning outcomes; and long-term completion rates …”

“We’ve set up teams consisting of faculty members, staff, and administration to address the non-compliance findings of the November 2020 review,” Geoghegan said. “There is a team for each of the five HLC evaluation criterion and additional teams for the 18 components included in the criteria. The teams are working very hard to gather evidence that substantiates the facts and arguments presented in the assurance argument due next February.”

When gaps in evidence have been identified, “teams are working with leaders of the college to decide how to eliminate the gaps. In addition, we are working to respond to the prior peer review team’s concerns and recommendations by ensuring that our evidence and arguments show that we are a different institution to strengthen the college’s overall compliance record.”

Geoghegan said the college community has “immersed ourselves into HLC evaluation criteria and have moved the college into a continuous culture of assessment, making both academic and non-academic decisions based on the best data available.”

The college’s growth spurt didn’t go unnoticed by DOE, either, though its concerns were focused on financials and how EGCC dispenses aid to those thousands of students attending for free.

DOE Midwest Division Chief Jeremy Early contends the free benefits program is a financial shell game of sorts. In a three-page letter to college officials, Early suggested the college’s Free College Benefit program requires Pell Grant students to be charged a higher amount than non-Pell students and implies that an institution-funded scholarship is unallowable.

He told them they can’t distribute Pell funds to new students until the program is “redesigned to charge full tuition and fees for non-Pell students” and must “cease waiving the tuition and fees for non-Pell students.”

‘Students who do not receive Pell or state grant funds have their entire tuition, fee and book charges reduced to zero,” Early wrote. “The notations on student ledger cards make it appear that there is truly a ‘scholarship’ being funded by one of many outside entities. The department has determined that outside entities provide virtually no funds. EGCC is merely waiving/writing off all non-Pell/state grant charges on student accounts, and falsely making it appear that the students are being funded by outside entities. Essentially, under this program, students who receive Pell funding are being charged for the program, but students not receiving Pell are not.”

“Students with lower levels of need have a higher ‘write-off’ and ultimately fewer charges than the needier Pell students,” Early charged. “The ultimate result of the implementation of the Free College Benefit Program is that the Pell Grant Program and the state grants are funding the educational costs of students whose incomes make them ineligible for either. “

Early insisted implementation of the Free College Benefit “put EGCC in a very precarious financial position because the funds needed to actually educate students are severely limited, forcing EGCC to drastically cut its academic and operating expenses.”

“This calls into question EGCC’s continued viability as an educational institution,” Early charged.

Geoghegan disputed that, saying that’s “just his opinion.”

“That is not accurate or correct at all,” he said. “We finished the year with a healthy surplus of around $15 million. We’ve got significant reserves, we’ve built up the cash reserves of the college over the past five or six years. It’s his opinion, it’s not supported by the facts.”

Geighegan also insists tuition and fees are the same for both populations, “and EGCC’s program simply ensures that all students can attend college free of charge, regardless of their Pell eligibility.” He also maintains the Free College Benefit program is compliant with federal law “and is the best option for the College to ensure it can both fund student attendance and continue to operate a high-quality program.”

“We are determined to fight this, our attorneys believe this program has been properly set up and managed,” he said.

“When you look at student debt in this country, our students don’t have any debt…you would think a program like this would be something that all levels of government would like to see sustainable, be out there as a model.”