The Financial State of Tennessee State University

Since 2021, the financial health of Tennessee State University has been in the news.

In 2021 a group of state lawmakers found that in the previous 50 years the state had underfunded the school by about a half a billion dollars. Then, in 2023, a federal report said that the state underfunded the university by far more than the original estimate — about $2 billion dollars just between 1987 and 2020. This fall, TSU laid off more than 100 employees and just last month the administration announced further cost-saving measures to keep from running out of money by the end of the school year. Today we’re taking your calls and speaking with HBCU historian Dr. Crystal deGregory, Tennessean reporter Rachel Wegner and Andrea Williams, op-ed columnist and curator of the Black Tennessee Voices initiative for the The Tennessean. We’ll explore HBCU history, TSU’s funding, and what could be done to permanently fix this chronic situation.

This episode was produced by Mary Mancini.

Guests

• Rachel Wegner, Education Reporter, The Tennessean
• Dr. Crystal deGregory, Director, Mary McLeod Bethune Institute for the Study of Women and Girls, Bethune-Cookman University; Fisk and TSU alumnus
• Andrea Williams, Op-ed Columnist and curator of the Black Tennessee Voices initiative, The Tennessean

Further listening and reading

• This is Nashville | The historic underfunding of Tennessee State University, and what comes next (January 26, 2023)