This episode originally aired on Sept. 15, 2026.
Not only is Columbus State Community College transforming its campus, it’s changing downtown Columbus as well.
New buildings and partnerships are happening at a rate the school hasn’t experienced before.
From the Columbus Promise to the Buckeye Bridge, more students have access to higher education.
At the helm of this transformation is CSCC President David Harrison. We’ll talk with him about how the school is evolving and what it means for central Ohio.
Guest:
- David Harrison, president, Columbus State Community College
Transcript
This transcript is generated with AI. To ensure its accuracy, review the audio file.
Amy Juravich: Welcome to All Sides with Amy Juravich. The cost of obtaining a four-year college degree can be significantly reduced by attending a community college. A ballot issue had been proposed for the November election that could have provided free tuition for Franklin County High School graduates. It would have been done via a property tax, which Columbus State Community College was considering asking voters to approve. However, that proposal was withdrawn. Joining us this hour to talk about this and other changes happening at the school, including a lot of development, is David Harrison, president of Columbus State Community College. Welcome back to All Sides.
David Harrison: Hi, Amy, thanks for having me.
Juravich: All right, so the college recently announced it was shelving its proposed 2026 property tax ballot issue that would have funded some free tuition for Franklin County residents. What specifically led to this? Was it a pushback? Was it internal data? Like why the sudden shift? Like it's here and then it was gone.
Harrison: Well, this is something we've been working toward for a while. This is a pivotal moment for our region. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that Columbus is leading the Midwest in job growth. The state of Ohio has just been named America's top state to do business with. We've got great jobs available in central Ohio with more on the way. And at Columbus State, our job is to help more people get good jobs and launch great careers. So we're always going to be aggressive in opening doors and helping more people achieve economic prosperity. One of our board members, Kareem Berger, who's now CEO of the Columbus Partnership. Says a good job solves a lot of problems. And that's really fundamental to what we're about. And through Columbus Promise, which was a partnership, is a partnership between the city and I know I can in Columbus City Schools, that provided free tuition for all Columbus City Schools graduates. We had a five year track record of showing how this can really work and help students who may not have had opportunities for these jobs before. Get on a path to really change their lives. So that was the premise that we were working on. Yes.
Juravich: Yeah. So you saw the Columbus Promise as the model and you were like, let's expand it.
Harrison: Yeah, so how do we scale that, sustain it for Columbus City Schools, first of all, and then scale it throughout Franklin County. So that was kind of our starting point. And had a lot of community conversations around that. But as we got deeper into it, and as it started to become real, there were other conversations of people who were raising concerns, and the concerns they raised really about Columbus State or our students. But it was the broader economic environment that the community finds itself in right now.
Juravich: Someone told you that we can't stomach another property tax right now.
Harrison: We were in a lot of those kinds of conversations and we were in a lot conversations that where folks are saying we got to do this because we've we've got to have take advantage of these career opportunities that we have now. At Columbus State we are a partner first institution. We really do work to bring the community together and after weighing all of the input that we got we decided that now probably wasn't the right time.
Juravich: Now, how do you answer critics who say, you know, this is available through the Columbus Promise to Columbus City Schools, and now you're delaying this crucial goal of like regional equity by letting having other people, not just Columbus City School students have this available.
Harrison: I share the same concern and that's the problem we want to continue to solve. We're going to keep taking big swings and really try to solve that problem because being fully inclusive is who Columbus State is. Columbus Promise Make No Mistake has been a really important intervention for Columbus City Schools kids and we are. Getting better every year and providing that kind of successful path for them so we absolutely want to scale it as broadly as we can.
Juravich: Now, you called it taking a big swing. So you did take the swing. You announced the levy. You said, we're gonna do this. We're gonna put this on the ballot. And then you pulled back. So who told you to pull back? I mean, can you name a person?
Harrison: Well, for us to be on the ballot, it takes two board actions. And we didn't take either of the two. So they were really public discussions. They weren't formal actions.
Juravich: Were you trying to get the temperature in the room, I guess, by announcing it?
Harrison: All of our board meetings are public.
Juravich: Okay.
Harrison: So it was a public conversation anyway, and it was through those conversations that we got other input and other feedback than we listened to.
Juravich: So was property taxes the right way to go? I mean in this economy how the public feels the public fields very negatively about property taxes of any sort right now So is there another way to pay for an idea like this? That's not property taxes
Harrison: Well, property taxes for us, that's the only avenue we have through the Ohio Revised Code to be able to do that, to do something at scale like this. So the opportunity to continue to try to support at least Columbus Promise with Columbus City Schools through private philanthropy and grants and other kinds of opportunities is really what we're working through now.
Juravich: Yeah, I mean, I guess the Columbus Promise, they were having trouble with funding it, you know, at one point there wasn't funding and then there was funding a dispute between the council and the mayor's office. So did that get you guys all thinking like, we have to make this sustainable and expandable? Yeah.
Harrison: It did, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of uncertainty in the lives of students and families right now. And the ability for us as a community and for us, as a college, to provide a pathway that students and family can count on is really what we're trying to do. And we'll continue to try to figure out what the next step is.
Juravich: Were you surprised at the immediate public media backlash where you like i mean you had you had the likes of former mayor michael colman saying this is not a good idea right away were you surprised?
Harrison: A little bit, because we had had conversations before, but as I said, it really wasn't about Columbus State. It wasn't a about Columbus Promise. Even those who were urging us to reconsider were big fans of Columbus Promise, again, I think it was a broader environmental context that folks were raising concerns about and we listen.
Juravich: Okay, and so there's no other way for you to raise money besides a property tax? Is there another way to pay for this idea?
Harrison: Well, I mean, Columbus Promise was initially funded through the city and through private philanthropy. And that path will continue. And I do want to be clear that we do have funding for the class of 2027. So the seniors who are at Columbus City Schools now will have a path for Columbus Promise. It includes three years of tuition-free education at Columbus State. Um, and that message is important to get out there. So we've got some time now to figure out how we can at least extend it, uh, for Columbus City Schools. And again, hopefully scale it someday soon.
Juravich: So would you say this idea is not gone forever? Oh, no, no.
Harrison: Like I said, we'll keep taking big swings.
Juravich: Okay, yeah, so you're not ruling out another property tax idea in the future depending on the climate.
Harrison: Yeah, I mean, there are no immediate plans. I mean the state law, frankly, that gave us this authority just got changed as part of this state budget. And that's not going away. So it'll always be an option for us as a community.
Juravich: This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about how changes at Columbus State Community College are impacting the region. We're taking with David Harrison, President of Columbus State community college. So it may not be available to all of Franklin County as we just discussed, but the Columbus Promise with Columbus City Schools lives on. And there was a new third party report that was issued recently. And it called the Columbus promise an unequivocal success. That must've felt good.
Harrison: Yeah, yeah, the city had hired the Upjohn Institute as our third-party evaluator early on in the PROMISE process. And they benchmark these kinds of PROMISE programs. And they're very different community to community. But it's nice to get that kind of external validation that really reinforced the data that our folks have been tracking for five years.
Juravich: The report had a lot of positives. More students from Columbus City Schools attended Columbus State each year of the program. So it grew each year. More students got associates degrees. I mean, does this give you confidence that the program is worth it and to find a way to make it continue?
Harrison: Absolutely. And it's gotten better every year. Keep in mind that the promise was put in place, not directly as a result of the pandemic, because we started the conversations before, but once the pandemic hit, we said, okay, now we got to do this. And the students who are started at Columbus State this fall, or in sixth grade during the pandemic. So think about the learning loss that they experienced through that time. And the fact that the students now are outperforming Columbus City school students who come to Columbus State prior to the pandemic is pretty remarkable. And it shows what we're capable of as a community. And that's where it urges us to think big, because, you know. I'm very lucky, I've got a great job, I love what I do. We get to see these students every day and the impact it's making on their lives. So we always wanna see how can we get more people, more students in successful programs like this.
Juravich: There's a political science professor at Ohio State University, Vladimir Kogan, who is a longtime critic of the program. He was interviewed recently about the Columbus Promise by WOSU news reporter Allie Vugrincic. He believes that the program is diverting students who would have gone to college anyway, diverting them from what he calls, quote, much better four-year schools with more resources and better student support. Now, I'm sure you're going to take issue with him calling four- year schools much better than Columbus State, but then he also said this.
Vladimir Kogan: So we actually have no evidence in this report that any single student is getting a college degree that they wouldn't have otherwise gotten.
Juravich: So does the report show that students would not have gone to college without the Columbus promise?
Harrison: Absolutely. It shows that, and to be clear, we've got great partnerships with our university partners. So we want as many of our students to go get their bachelor's degrees there as well. But the comparison with universities, and frankly with other Promise programs, is an apples to oranges comparison. By design, Columbus Promise was fully inclusive. And many of the students who have come to Columbus State. Wouldn't have gone to college at all. And the idea that these students should be working and not going to college gets right up next to me because all of our students are working anyway. And our job is not to help them get a minimum wage job, but it's to help then launch a career. And we've been able to really provide a pathway to do that, and we're just getting started. I mean, one of the things that is really important to know is that. Existing Promise programs, in many cases, have been in place for many, many years. And the idea of now families having role models where older sisters have been successful at Columbus State, so their seventh grade brother knows that's gonna be waiting for him, that's really what we're trying to achieve.
Juravich: Kogan wrote a piece for the Fordham Institute, that's an education policy think tank, criticizing the Columbus promise, calling it the false Columbus promise. He wrote that only about 5% of eligible Columbus high school graduates have gone on to earn an associate's degree or certificate. And the Fordam Institute also says the Columbus Promise, quote, barely moved the needle on helping students attain higher education, economic opportunity. I mean, how do you respond to remarks like that?
Harrison: I think the data he was looking at was based on the first year or two of the program or something like that. And as I said, these were students who were sophomores, juniors, and seniors in the peak of the pandemic. Most of them, the vast majority are coming to us not ready to do college level work. So the ability to work shoulder to shoulder with them to help them understand what's possible, and to give them a line of sight on how to get there is really something we're trying to do on a daily basis. It's a personal connection times thousands of students. And that's really what Columbus Promise provides. There's also been comparison to other programs that are selective admission. I mean, that's again where, that's just not accurate math because... Our program is designed for anybody who's a high school graduate from Columbus City Schools is welcome.
Juravich: And Kogan said that the Columbus promise could be improved by offering free tuition to any public in-state institution, including those with four-year degrees instead of just Columbus State. I mean, do you know why the program has not included other schools? Is this something that, is that not a question for you? Is that a question for the architect of the program?
Harrison: Yeah, I think it's, you know, it's. So who's going to pay for it? I mean, we have by far the most affordable tuition of any other higher ed institution. And that's where our partnerships with universities come into play. Buck Eye Bridge is a great example. And our partnership with Ohio State, coupled with Columbus Promise, basically provides a free pathway to an Ohio State bachelor's degree for almost all Columbus City schools. Or actually. The way Promise is designed now for all Columbus City Schools kids. That's not happening anywhere else in the country. So those kinds of partnerships are really where the reality is. It's not a binary decision like some have pointed out.
Juravich: Well, that leads us to the Buckeye Bridge program. So this is a program to take students who earn an associate's degree from Columbus State Community College and transfer easily to Ohio State. Who is this for? Is it just for Columbus Promise students or any students within the income threshold?
Harrison: No, it's it's for any graduate of Columbus State Community College.
Juravich: Okay, I think I was equating it with Columbus Promise because we just talked about that. So anyone at Columbus State Community College, but there's an income, that one has an income limit as opposed to Columbus Promise, which it didn't.
Harrison: Buckeye Bridge Inc. Was inspired by Columbus Promise just because our partners at OSU saw the impact that free pathway was having in a positive way. But it's much broader than that because all of our 100% of Columbus State's graduates who are from families with $100,000 in gross annual income have a free tuition pathway to Ohio State.
Juravich: So a family income of $100,000 or less, and you can take your associate's degree and transfer everything over. Right. Okay. Right. And who is paying for that? Ohio State. Okay. So didn't you recently celebrated the first group? Is that true? Like, tell me about that.
Harrison: Yeah, so it's. So as we talked about before we got on the air, I'm in my 16th year here at Columbus State. And the partnership with Ohio State has been a top priority for us from the beginning and have had a long standing partnership called Preferred Pathway where our students could transfer easily. But the scholarship piece was different. And Buckeye Bridge has really created energy with both Ohio State and Columbus State not just at a leadership level but deep into the organization on how we can really align around the student experience so the students who are coming to Columbus State in their first and second year already see a line of sight to Ohio State have relationships there and really understand what it's going to take to be successful as they move forward. That's the infrastructure that OSU and Columbus State are aligning to put together. So we did have a couple of celebrations. The first class, we've got I think nearly 200 students in the first class of Buckeye Bridge who are coming to Ohio State. Importantly though, that's a subset of the total number of students from Columbus State who are transferring to Ohio state because a lot of our students who transfer wouldn't be income eligible. So we're really trying to make sure that experience is something that is fully inclusive. And that we're both easy to do business with for these students and I'm just really inspired by the leadership with both Columbus State and Ohio State. I mean the teams that are working through this are putting students first and are really thinking through where the bottlenecks are with regard to student success and we're off to a really good start. Like Columbus promise I fully expect Buckeye Bridge to get better every year And there is a real vibe between the teams that there's an energy that I think is really powerful that we want to continue.
Juravich: How many years has Ohio State committed to funding this?
Harrison: We don't have an end date. I mean, this is something that.
Juravich: You have an ellipsis?
Harrison: This is, you know, I think it's something that, from the broad community perspective, there's a pretty clear ROI. And if you think about us as a community having a path where more students can earn degrees at Columbus State and Ohio State debt free. And these are students that are from for the most part from Central Ohio and are going to stay in Central Ohio, although it's actually going to be a draw to Central Ohio because we actually serve students from all 88 counties. And the ability for these students to come get an associate's degree from Columbus State and then a bachelor's degree at Ohio State, the likelihood of them staying in the community is very high. So we really think this can be a force multiplier as we move forward.
Juravich: Do you have a commitment from Ohio State, despite the leadership change, that this will continue? Because I know this was former President Ted Carter's idea.
Harrison: But President Bellamkonda was involved from the beginning as well. And the first meeting he and I had was, when he was provost, was about laying the groundwork for Buckeye Bridge. So I give President Carter credit for really putting this in motion. But there's a ton of people on both sides that are really working through this to make it work for students long term.
Juravich: All right. So you feel confident it'll be around long term? Absolutely. We are talking this hour with David Harrison, president of Columbus State Community College. Coming up, we're going to talk about big development projects happening in and around Columbus State's campus and how the community college is changing, not just their own map, but the look of downtown. That's when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. Community colleges have proven to be an economical way to obtain a higher education. They're also significant contributors to the education and the economics of the communities they serve. Columbus State Community College is experiencing growth that is transforming its downtown campus and could have positive benefits throughout downtown Columbus and the region. Still with us is David Harrison, president of Columbus State community college. Thanks again for being here.
Harrison: Happy to be here. Thanks, Amy.
Juravich: There's a lot of construction happening in and around your campus. Most recently, there was the start of a 166-unit affordable housing complex. This project is aptly named Opportunity Point. Tell me who you hope will live there.
Harrison: Well, the name Opportunity Point came from Mayor Ginter's vision of Cleveland Avenue, calling it the Opportunity Corridor, and this is on the corner of Long and Cleveland. It will have 166 affordable units. It's actually 186 units total. The additional 20 units will be set aside for our students, although I do think many more than 20 of our students will live there. The area downtown where our campus is. Priced itself out of the market from a housing standpoint for our students years ago. And the ability to have this as an anchor and hopefully a starting point for affordable housing in our neighborhood is something we're really excited about.
Juravich: Did you feel like you had a few extra parking lots and you were like, we should build something here.
Harrison: Yeah, we we do have some surface parking that we are taking taking advantage of. It's taken us a while to get there. I say all the time that you had a plethora of college presidents always have a parking problem either too much or too little.
Juravich: Never just right.
Harrison: And I'd rather have too little because that shows there's more demand. Although I may regret saying that because we're losing a lot of it fast.
Juravich: All right. So the rents in this place are going to range between $480 a month up to $1,400 a month. So talk to me about the affordability piece. Are you going to have, is it a certain percentage at each of those rates or it depends on the size? Like talk to me about who says what's affordable?
Harrison: Well, one of the. Great values that we have as threaded through this project is we partner with experts. And in this case, we're not in the housing business. We're partnering with Woda Cooper who does affordable housing for a living. So those kinds of opportunities and the math that you're talking about is really something that they will operate. We're doing a land lease with them. So they'll run the facility. Again, the 20 units that our students. Set aside for our students won't be income dependent.
Juravich: Did you, did they pay you for the land or are you paying them to build it?
Harrison: It's a lease that they are leasing the land from us. We've got an affiliated entity called Columbus State Community Partners, separate 501C3, that manages our real estate. And that has been instrumental in putting these kinds of deals together. This isn't something that Columbus State would do naturally. But in 2019. Our board created this separate entity that allowed us to start thinking more creatively and partnering differently with experts that can do these kinds of things.
Juravich: Is that when you realize you have a lot of land and you need to...
Harrison: Well, we knew that. You know, I came in 2010 and we had a lot of a lot of of unused land. And, you know, we we've talked about it for years. And one of the things we're talking about now is kind of our ethos of go slow to go fast. Yeah, we went slow for a long time as we were really trying to figure out what we should do and then how to do it and really have experts in the room to help us think through. What the best path forward is, and a lot of these things have converged now at about the same time, which is really exciting.
Juravich: Well, another development near the campus is a grocery store. A new 20,000 square foot Aldi will be opening adjacent to the campus. How did this come about to be a part of the expansion plans?
Harrison: So All of this is around student success and student success through partnerships. And years ago, as part of our student success work, we identified food, housing, transportation, and childcare as key non-academic barriers. Our students lead complicated lives. Almost all of them are working. Many of them have family responsibilities. So the ability for us to eliminate those barriers is something that we've been. Methodically working toward. So we've had projects that eliminated housing as an issue. So we knew that worked. That's what led to opportunity point. We've had a partnership with the Mid-Ohio Food Collective since 2019 that showed that eliminating or at least reducing food insecurity could make a difference. And then as we got frankly really good leadership with our Columbus State Community Partners team. They were able to put together some conversations that wouldn't have happened before. And that's how Aldi came to be. I'm told it's been decades since downtown had a full-service grocery store. And the fact that it's an Aldi with, you know, which has an affordability component to it right across the street from Opportunity Point, right across Street from Ohio Health Hall is going to be transformative.
Juravich: I was going to ask though why Aldi as opposed to Cincinnati-based Kroger. Did Aldi just make sense?
Harrison: Yeah, I think they've got a business model that fits really well with our community currently where it is and we think where it's heading and the footprint is something that most grocery stores wouldn't be able to be profitable on and all these got a model that works.
Juravich: This you're talking about the size of the lot is an Aldi size as opposed to a Kroger size, okay In addition to Aldi itself the company and Columbus State your partnership your real estate entity Who else is helping with the project preparing the site? Is the city helping is there any city money involved in this because you're you're bringing a grocery store to downtown Columbus.
Harrison: Yeah, the city's been very helpful with with infrastructure. The county, specifically with Aldi, is putting nine hundred thousand dollars toward toward the project. There are other partners that are providing some support, but.
Juravich: The county is giving money, but not the city.
Harrison: The city is basically putting in-kind contributions in because of the engineering support and other kinds of site development work that they're doing. The city has been an incredible partner through all of these developments, and we're really working shoulder to shoulder with them. Like I said, this is something that's new to us. So the ability to have good partners in that regard has been helpful.
Juravich: You mentioned the Mid-Ohio Market food pantry that's located on your campus. Will the presence of Aldi impact the food pantry? No, no, no.
Harrison: No, no, no. They'll both be really important. Our partnership with the Mid-Ohio Food Collective, It actually serves more non-students than students, which is fine.
Juravich: It's just the location. Yeah. Yeah, okay. This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We're talking about how changes to Columbus State Community College are impacting the region with David Harrison, president of Columbus State community college. In more development news, as if you don't have enough going on, you're partnering with the YMCA of central Ohio on a downtown fitness center and this is going to have childcare, which is another component you mentioned, childcare for students who have children too. Do you have any updates on that development? I'm not sure where we'at.
Harrison: Yeah, it will break ground in early 2027.
Juravich: That's why I was I was gonna ask you about shovels. That's what people want to see. They want to say the shovels in the dirt
Harrison: And then all that.
Juravich: Although it's a paved lot, so you're going to have to truck in some dirt, but anyway.
Harrison: Well, we did that for an opportunity point. But hopefully, it'll be up and running by fall of 2028, two years from now.
Juravich: Okay, so it was springish a few months, like six months from now for the groundbreaking, maybe a little over a year to build it. Yeah. Okay. And tell me about the childcare component. Questions.
Harrison: Well, this is a big deal for us, because...
Juravich: You've had some hits and misses here with the childcare area.
Harrison: Child care is a tough business, and having a partner like the Y that's going to be able to do it at scale is something that we're excited about. The downtown Y closed years ago, and we've been in off and on conversations with the city and others, including the Y, about is there a long-term solution there? And give Tony Collins and Zach Woodruff is our leader who heads up Columbus State Community Partners credit for putting together a model that is really gonna be transformative. And the fact that it is gonna have free drop-in childcare for our students is gonna be a game changer. By our estimates, almost a quarter of our students are involved in family care of some kind, either caring for their own children or for their parents or some combination. So, the ability to manage that in a high-quality way is something that we're really excited about. I tell the story all the time because you haven't talked about Ohio Health Hall yet, but Ohio Health is going to be right across Spring Street, but the idea of one of our students who lives in Opportunity Point with their young daughter gets up in the morning, walks across. Cleveland Avenue to the YMCA and drops her daughter off for child care, walks across Spring Street to Ohio Health Hall to take her nursing classes. And then before she picks up her daughter, walks up across the street and gets groceries at Aldi before going home. And it's a short bus ride for her, for a clinical to Grant Medical Center with Ohio Health or Nationwide Children's or the Wexner Medical Center. That's making help unavoidable and it's really building a system that students don't have to figure all that out themselves. And we're really excited about that student that is described and multiplied by thousands.
Juravich: You said the word free though, free child care. And then, but then prior to that, you said child care is a hard business. So, I mean, is that sustainable for it to be free? Who's paying for this free?
Harrison: Well, our students, our student body as a whole, voted for a fee that will sustain that in perpetuity and give each of them a membership to NEY in the region. So our building won't open up for two years. We've started the process now and I think, don't quote me on this, but I think over 2,000 of our students. Have already applied for Y memberships. So we're focusing on childcare, which we should.
Juravich: So in the interim, they can use a different way. Yeah, yeah.
Harrison: Yeah, yeah, but the fitness component of this is really important, too.
Juravich: OK, well, I promised Ohio Health Hall. That was next on my list. Columbus State's campus undergoing a major transformation with the construction of Ohio Health Hall. What can you tell me about the importance of this building? Because you're obviously proud of it.
Harrison: Yeah, I mean, we talk a lot as a community about the economic development and the new jobs that are coming in. In every conversation I'm in, I always make sure healthcare is in the room because the opportunity to provide amazing career paths for more and more students in this space not only helps them and their families, but it improves the quality of healthcare in our region. And we're very lucky to have such great health care systems and the ability for us to be the primary provider from a workforce standpoint is critical. So we had capital dollars to build out a new health sciences center. In 2020, the county supported us with a bond issue which we're incredibly grateful for. And this was in the middle of the pandemic. Or the early stages of the pandemic, when we had nursing shortages and everything else. So the ability for us to jump in and really start to scope out how we could build capacity to double our output in that space was where we were. We could build the building, but we didn't have funding to operate it. Ohio Health came in and provided a $25 million endowment that will allow us to hire faculty, support faculty and staff. In perpetuity. A $25 million endowment for community colleges is crazy. I mean, it's really unprecedented. Had the opportunity just yesterday to take a tour. We've got the walls up now and a number of us went on a tour
Juravich: Was it a hard hat tour? Okay, I was like it that that dictates how much how built it is whether you have to wear a hard hat. Yeah, yeah
Harrison: Yeah, yeah. Again, we're a year away from that opening as well, but it was a Hard Hat tour and I was standing next to our Dean of Nursing, who's been a nursing faculty at Columbus State for many years. And as they were describing the simulation labs that in Ohio Health Hall, she started crying. Because the comparison of the student experience and the faculty experience now, compared to what it's gonna be, was overwhelming. And these were just metal studs. This wasn't a built-out room, but she could see it. She was dreaming a dream. Yeah, yeah, and that's the kind of thing that we talk about these projects, these aren't about construction projects, these are about transforming people's lives and the ability for them to come together in this kind of. Of synergistic way and at this scale is something we're really happy about.
Juravich: I mean, you've mentioned this a few times, but like the affordable housing complex, the new YMCA and the pipeline, a grocery store, this Ohio health hall, it sounds like if you're a community college acting as a primary real estate and civic developer for downtown Columbus, is that Columbus State's role? I mean you said you created this new entity that's a 501C3 that's more real estate focused, but like, are you in the education business or are you a developer?
Harrison: Well, it wasn't intentional that this happened. Or an accidental developer. Yeah, I mean, as you pointed out, we had a lot of surface parking that was underutilized. That's not good for the colleges, not good the for the city. So the Columbus State Community Partners entity really did start to provide a strategic focus on how we can optimize that, but with our values at the core. This isn't just about real estate development, this really is about student success.
Juravich: You didn't want to just sell off the land to anybody.
Harrison: That's exactly right, exactly right. And that's where community partners is really helpful because we're not just putting a for sale sign out there. We're bringing in partners that care about the same things we do. And it has paid off in a really big way. So the funding that we received through Franklin County's bond issue was $300 million. We've used that to leverage almost another 150 million through these partnerships that are enabling this kind of development that is using other resources that we wouldn't have access to otherwise. And these are resources that are gonna help our students and help the community more broadly.
Juravich: Our guest this hour is David Harrison, president of Columbus State Community College. Coming up, we're going to talk about how Columbus State is planning for the jobs of tomorrow and how they can properly predict the future. That is when All Sides continues on 89.7 NPR News.
You're listening to All Sides. I'm your host, Amy Juravich. From an Aldi grocery store to a YMCA facility, changes are happening at Columbus State Community College. These developments are just some of the projects happening in and around the school, which recently awarded diplomas to its largest graduating class. Still with us to talk about how the college is transforming its campus and downtown is David Harrison, President of Columbus State community college. Thanks for being here.
Harrison: Happy to be here. Thanks, Amy.
Juravich: So Columbus State is launching a $278 million campus redevelopment plan targeted at high demand fields, making semiconductors, focusing in on healthcare. But with local projects like Intel, drawing national scrutiny over all the delays, I mean, how can you guarantee to the community that putting all this money into these jobs of the future is gonna pay out?
Harrison: Columbus has always been fortunate to have a diverse economy relative to other competing cities, whether that's state government, health care, higher ed. The fact that a lot of these new jobs are coming in advanced technology spaces, I'm really excited about. And the fact that they're in different industries, I think is a big plus. So you mentioned Intel. That was an opportunity as a state for us to come together and really think big and work closely together to get the infrastructure in place to happen.
Juravich: So you started training people, but now Intel's not happening until 2031, question mark, question mark. So you're training people but they're gonna have to go work somewhere else.
Harrison: Yeah, but it also built a repeatable process that we're able to apply into other emerging industries. I still think somebody is going to make chips there someday with Intel. Some sort of chip somewhere. Yeah, and but the fact that Intel has slowed down and our economy continues to grow is a really good sign. The fact that we are still the largest job producer in the Midwest without Intel, think of what happens when Intel does hit the ground. So, the opportunities in our community are something that we, again, are excited about, and it's our job to fill those fabs. It's our jobs to fill manufacturing centers. It's out job to the fill the emergency rooms and the trauma centers, and we're all in.
Juravich: Tell me about why it's your job as opposed to a four year degrees job.
Harrison: Well, they're not mutually exclusive. And in any of these big economic development projects, they'll show you the spreadsheet of the number of technician jobs, the number of engineering jobs, the number PhDs they need. And the ability for us as a community to come together is something that is attractive. I mean, we're really lucky in central Ohio to have the assets, the higher ed assets that we have. Because most of the communities we compete with don't and if they do they're probably not working together the way we are So we are really trying to help those Students they're all students to me have the skills to get a technician level job whether that's in health care or advanced manufacturing or cybersecurity Which doesn't close the door on them continuing their education. But typically continuing their education with employers paying for tuition. Debt-free degrees are something that's really important to us at Columbus State, and the ability to have employers lean in from a tuition support standpoint makes a huge difference.
Juravich: Talk to me about the healthcare jobs because that seems more immediate rather than planning for semiconductors that we don't know when we'll build. So I mean, every aspect of healthcare feels like it needs more humans.
Harrison: I agree and one of the things I'm excited about in having these kinds of conversations is those are jobs for the most part that people understand. I say for the first part because so many of our students come wanting to be nurses because that's the only health care job they really do understand. So Ohio Health Hall is going to go a long way to help students and families understand what the full spectrum of job opportunities are. In healthcare, but the great thing about those jobs is they are in people's communities. And the ability to have direct access to a job at your local health center is something that we're honored to be part of making that happen because that, if you think about Intel, you think about some of these other opportunities that are. A little more distant, at least from the downtown area. That's a harder sell for some individuals. And healthcare are jobs that for the most part, people all understand because they've had some experience in that regard. And as I said earlier, it's great for the folks who are entering careers in that field because these are gonna be high growth, high wage careers for them throughout their career. But it absolutely increases the quality of healthcare that we all experience.
Juravich: Not just nurses, but when my son broke a bone recently, I definitely, a empathetic and skilled x-ray technician, very important.
Harrison: Absolutely, absolutely. Edging is a huge part of.
Juravich: Yeah, I know. Tell me about, I mentioned it twice now, the largest graduating class, Columbus State. You marked that milestone. Tell me about that class.
Harrison: Yeah, it's a big deal for us. If you haven't been to one of our commencement ceremonies, you should come because it's, it a great party. I mean, we make it fun and make sure that folks are able to express their joy with their, because it a family affair. But we did have our largest graduating class. We'll have collectively, I think, our largest number of graduates. How many is that? Do you have?
Juravich: How many is that? You have a number. I didn't write down the number. I didn't write down the number.
Harrison: So we had 1,400 graduates, but we'll have over 5,000 this year who completed degrees. 24% of our graduates were African-American students. We serve more African-Americans students than any college or university in the state. That's something that it's important to us to really make sure that we're focusing on the communities that we serve. So it isn't just about enrollment, it really is about completion. And that's where our graduation. Numbers were worth celebrating.
Juravich: And is it, when you say graduate, you mean have an associate's degree, which typically, I mean, could take two years, but it's allowed to take more than two years.
Harrison: The 1,400 were all associate degree graduates, the 5,000 that I mentioned include certificates and many of the jobs that we were just talking about, especially in advanced manufacturing, don't necessarily require an associate degree to start, but they do require a post-secondary credential to get them rolling and that's what we've been really good at jumping into.
Juravich: Okay, so a certificate program. Yeah. This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. We have just a couple minutes left with David Harrison, president of Columbus State Community College. Just looking toward the future. I mean, what's next? So you're building an Aldi, you're building this affordable housing, you are building Ohio Health Hall, YMCA. You have more to build?
Harrison: Well, the one that we haven't talked about is we do have a Center for Automotive Technology that will go beyond Spring Street adjacent to our current parking garage. There'll be some synergy there. And then what that will do is continue a series of dominoes in our core campus. So, most of the bond proceeds really are going to upgrade in current classrooms. Taking care of HVAC and roof issues, making sure we've got a great ADA assets with all of our buildings. So a lot of that work won't be as visible as you're driving by campus, but will impact thousands of students. So we are repurposing Franklin Hall, which is one of our oldest buildings on our core campus. That'll open up. In January as just classrooms and labs, no offices. And that'll be swing space then for really each academic building kind of a floor at a time to be able to move into Franklin Hall for a semester, get their classrooms and labs upgraded, move back the next semester and then another group will move in. So that'll start a really aggressive timeline over the next several years to get that part done. We've also got an announcement that actually will start this week about Brown Hall. It was formerly Delaware Hall. We've recommissioned that Brown Hall, and that's going to be a hub for student activity that we're in the early stages of trying to figure out, but are really excited about that. We really want to be easy to do business with for our students, and the ability to. Make sure that there's a more of a one-stop feel to that is something we're trying to get to. And then we'll have to figure out parking too. So that's something that's down the road.
Juravich: What what do you mean you took away too much surface parking now?
Harrison: As we project it out, as we project our growth, we're probably going to need another parking garage at some point.
Juravich: You are never going to solve the parking issue. What did you say? You said that you either have too much or too little, but you're never just right. Never just right, okay. All right, Goldilocks, we'll figure it out. Our guest in this hour has been Columbus State Community College President David Harrison. I want to thank you for your time today. Thanks for joining us.
Harrison: Thanks so much for having me.
Juravich: And you're listening to All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. If you missed any part of today's show, listen back at our website, wosu.org slash all sides. Subscribe to our podcast. Every episode is available in our mobile app. Be sure to like All Sides on Facebook and follow our show on Instagram. This is All Sides on 89.7 NPR News. I'm Amy Juravich.