Emporia State University president faults tech college for competition, envisions hostile takeover

Ken Hush, center, appears at a Nov. 20, 2024, meeting of the Kansas Board of Regents in Manhattan. (Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector)

EMPORIA — Emporia State University president Ken Hush, in a letter to a local economic development agency, accused Flint Hills Technical College of competing for students and warned that lawmakers could force a hostile takeover of the tech college by the university.

In the Sept. 10 letter to the interim director of the Emporia Regional Development Association, Hush wrote he was “puzzled” and “perplexed” by the agency’s consideration for providing $100,000 in annual funding to Flint Hills Technical College. Hush also asked the agency to give ESU a five-year commitment of a half-million dollars per year. FHTC president Caron Daugherty responded with her own letter Sept. 20, in which she debunked numerous claims from Hush’s letter.

The exchange highlights the tension surrounding ESU’s perilous condition since Hush took charge in 2022. He attracted scrutiny by firing tenured professors, abolishing programs and restructuring the campus, and handing out secret bonuses. The Legislature provided a pair of $9 million bailouts as hundreds of students fled the university.

Kansas Reflector obtained the correspondence from Hush and Daugherty through a Kansas Open Records Act request with the Emporia Regional Development Association, which followed state law in promptly providing the documents.

In his letter, Hush said he had explored “synergies and an affiliation” with FHTC, but had been met with opposition. He claimed without evidence that an affiliation between the two would save taxpayers $1 million per year.

He pointed to legislation introduced last year by Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, that would have forced the affiliation. Senate Bill 519 didn’t receive a hearing.

“While the bill did not advance, I suspect there will be another attempt to push forward a bill to force” the affiliation, Hush wrote in the letter.

Hush also pointed to enrollment figures from 2011 to 2021 that showed the tech college was gaining students while ESU lost students. Many of the tech college students were high schoolers, he wrote, who could have been taking courses at ESU instead. At the same time, he claimed, FHTC expanded its offerings of general education courses.

“This form of local competition and duplication may be equivalent to ESU expanding its future programs that mirror FHTC for welding, industry technology, healthcare such as certified nursing assistant, dental hygiene, etc. With ESU’s new Nursing & Wellness Center completing next fall, this would be easy to do,” Hush wrote.

“We have attempted to affiliate with them and have been rebuffed,” he added. “Why should taxpayers continue to pay for redundant facilities and programs? This waste is unfortunate.”

ESU spokeswoman Gwen Larson didn’t respond to an inquiry asking questions for this story, including: What is the source for the estimated $1 million in savings for an affiliation between FHTC and ESU? Should the letter’s reference to ESU’s ability to expand programs that duplicate FHTC offerings be viewed as a threat?

Daugherty responded to a Kansas Reflector inquiry but didn’t answer questions.

In a Sept. 20 letter to the Emporia Regional Development Association, Daugherty confirmed she wasn’t interested in affiliating with ESU.

She pointed to legislation signed by former Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, to provide state-funded tuition for courses offered by technical and community colleges, which explains why FHTC enrollment increased by 1,200 students — many of them the high schoolers Hush had complained about. ESU’s enrollment during the same 10-year period declined by 2,500 students.

“There is no correlation,” Daugherty wrote.

When Masterson introduced legislation to force the tech college to affiliate with the university, she said, lawmakers asked her what she knew about the bill. Her answer: “Nothing.”

“The legislators indicated they did not support the action and the notion of a ‘forced affiliation,’ ” she wrote.

Mike Pirner, a spokesman for Masterson, didn’t respond to an inquiry for this story about whether the legislation will resurface in the coming legislative session.

Daugherty also revealed in her letter that she had asked two unnamed “ESU leaders” in October 2023 about establishing a transfer partnership, which would provide a path for tech college students to obtain a university degree from ESU. She is still waiting for a response, she wrote.

FHTC boasts a 98% placement rate for students with employers, Daugherty noted. Those students don’t have the burden of heavy debt, more than half are employed in Emporia, and most of the rest serve local communities, she wrote.

The tech college offers lower costs, a faster timeline to earnings, access to high-wage and high-demand careers, and relevant workforce experience in an academic setting, she wrote.

“FHTC is one of the best examples of efficient operations and mindful, conservative spending in the state if not the greater Midwest,” she wrote. “To be able to deliver technical education that allows students to succeed at a 98% placement rate is extraordinary, as technical education itself is highly expensive.”