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Tennessee State University is in deep financial trouble.
Auditors told the Board of Trustees last week that the historically Black land-grant university would have a $46 million deficit by the end of the year without financial help, NewsChannel5 reported. A week earlier, university officials told the state comptroller the university couldn’t make November payroll and received a $43 million emergency cash infusion as a result, according to Tennessee Lookout. The university reportedly started the year with $5 million.
“It's going to be two to three years before we build an adequate reserve,” Daarel Burnette, the university’s interim financial officer, told NewsChannel5. “Most colleges try to put 90 days of cash in reserve for the summer. We didn’t have anything. We have to build reserves to get us through the summer cycle. The issues and problems we are seeing today—this has been a wave building since COVID ended and maybe going on before that.”
Tennessee State officials say the university has had challenges with enrollment and retention. Enrollment fell from 8,198 students last fall to 6,310 this fall, and 3,542 students have enrolled for the spring, fewer than expected, NewsChannel5 reported. The financial aid director also resigned in September, making it difficult to get aid dollars to students, Bridgett Golman, interim vice president for student affairs, told the news outlet. The university has taken a number of belt-tightening measures, including cutting staff, ending band trips to away football games and slashing 117 contracts that duplicated services, which reportedly saved the university $3.5 million.
The board also voted Friday to urge interim president Ronald Johnson to end the contract of former president Glenda Glover, who was slated for an $850,000 transition agreement and $212,500 annually for four years in an advisory role, according to The Tennessean.
News of Tennessee State’s growing financial troubles comes after state lawmakers made the controversial move to overhaul the university’s board. The university is also chronically underfunded, according to a 2023 letter to Tennessee governor Bill Lee from the U.S. Department of Education and the Department of Agriculture, which claimed the state owed the university $2.1 billion.
