Oklahoma State University’s president has put the state’s largest community college system on notice that he has a vision for a merger that would create a simpler path to a bachelor’s degree in Tulsa.
Jim Hess’s public pronouncement at a Tulsa Press Club event in September sent shockwaves across the local higher education landscape, especially in the executive suite at Tulsa Community College.
An Oklahoma Watch public records request revealed that Hess’s trial balloon, which made headlines at every local news outlet, followed months of circulating a detailed roadmap among the powers that be.
It calls for a single-admissions entry point for students to either OSU-Tulsa or the renamed OSU Tulsa Community College, with shared governance and instruction.
In a Nov. 3 sit-down, Hess explained he laid the groundwork for taking his idea public by showing what he calls “A Higher Education Solution for Tulsa” to TCC’s leaders, the Board of Regents for the Oklahoma A&M Colleges, the State Regents for Higher Education, Gov. Kevin Stitt, gubernatorial candidates, some state lawmakers from Tulsa, and the Tulsa Regional Chamber.
But his appeal for change is directed at Tulsans.
“We’re offering a solution, and if Tulsa would like that solution, we’d love to provide it,” said Hess. “What we’re really interested in is Tulsa saying what they’d like to have.”
While he may be calling the shots at Oklahoma’s largest public university system from a corner office in Stillwater, Hess lived and worked in Tulsa for 30 years until he was appointed OSU president in 2025.
He argued that Tulsa’s higher education landscape is woefully inadequate for its community and regional economic interests, and forces students and parents to navigate a complex pathway to a four-year degree.
Passed in 2025, Senate Bill 701 allowed OSU-Tulsa, Northeastern State University-Broken Arrow and other major players to expand the academic programs they offer, including lower-division courses previously restricted because of duplication with TCC.
But Hess wants Tulsans to wake up to the reality that state taxpayer dollars are being used to duplicate freshman and sophomore college course offerings that state and local property taxes already pay for at TCC.
“Since the new law went into effect last year, I believe we have stood up 72 lower division courses at OSU-Tulsa,” said Hess. “We did that so that students would have an opportunity to start and finish with the same institution. The fact of the matter is, every dollar you spend at the lower division level is $1 you can’t spend on a new bachelor’s program or expanding existing programs to be able to produce more engineers, more project managers, more accountants in Tulsa. So we would prefer not to do it that way.”
Leigh Goodson, president & CEO of TCC since 2014, said Hess’s plan is too risky and could jeopardize the future of the local ad valorem revenue that has been fundamental to TCC’s success in producing associate’s degree and technical certificate holders for 56 years.
What Hess’ Plan Actually Says
Hess doesn’t use the term merger. He calls it a joining together of two institutions under one roof.
When he put the idea in writing, he titled it a “Higher Education Solution for Tulsa,” and referred to it throughout as the “OSU transition plan.”
Necessary governance shifts and statutory changes would include:
- Renaming TCC to OSU Tulsa Community College
Placing the two-year institution under the authority of the OSU A&M Board of Regents - Expanding the OSU-Tulsa Board of Trustees to include current TCC Regents
- Having one individual serve as both president of OSU Tulsa and OSU Tulsa Community College, with a single administrative team leading both institutions
- Other modifications to protect the existing ad valorem revenue
What wouldn’t change:
- TCC’s two-year accreditation would be preserved.
- Tulsa Achieves free tuition program
- All existing TCC transfer agreements with other institutions would remain in place.
- Two-year technical degree and workforce certificate programs
- TCC’s local property tax funding, otherwise known as ad valorem, would remain in Tulsa County to fund adult and technical education under the oversight of TCC Regents.
TCC has 17,211 students across its four campuses, with 67% on a path to transfer upon graduation and the rest heading straight into the workforce.
OSU-Tulsa was founded in 1999 as an urban branch of OSU to offer bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees, as well as graduate certificates, locally. It recorded its highest student enrollment in campus history, 3,419, in Fall 2025.
“OSU has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Tulsa, and we’re very, very committed to it,” Hess said. “But here’s what we can provide that is really the difference maker: Four-year degrees and jobs that Tulsa business and communities want. And we’d like to provide it in cooperation with another institution so that we can spend our money wisely.”
Goodson, TCC’s president, said she believes a merger of two such disparate institutions could only spoil TCC’s well-established success in serving both university-bound and technical workforce students, and threaten the approximately $60 million in local property tax revenue that is fundamental to its operation.
“There is a constitutional provision in our state that requires the money to be used as approved by voters,” Goodson said. “From my view and my board’s view, the risk is too high. TCC has taken ownership of our role in the transfer process. I think we have become a better partner. And we could negotiate one-stop admissions with our partners without merging.”
Goodson said she has looked at similar consolidation efforts in Connecticut, the District of Columbia and Georgia. She found that the former community colleges’ workforce programs in fields such as nursing, allied health, advanced manufacturing, and data analytics diminished over time because of the new, merged institutional focus on 4-year degree programs.
But she noted that OSU is an important partner for TCC, jockeying for first or second place with NSU for many years as the top destination for TCC grads who go on to a 4-year university.
“We are continuing partnership discussions,” she said. “If it ever happened, it would be over time. And it probably wouldn’t just involve us; I think it would be a statewide effort.”
Kicking the Hornet’s Nest
Hess said Tulsa’s system of public higher education options was born of political compromise and driven by what he called “academic program protectionism” in the late 1990s. He thinks it remains fundamentally flawed in its persistent complications for students.
“The basic question that has always haunted me is, ‘What is in the best interest of Tulsa?’ because the decisions were political, not what was in the best educational interests of Tulsans,” Hess said. “What we want to do is have a choice for them to make.”
How Tulsa’s local property tax revenue is spent is one key to understanding Hess’s proposal.
Voters approved collecting 2 mills ahead of TCC’s founding in 1970, and another 5 mills in 1994.
For reference, each mill, one-tenth of a cent, equals $1 of tax for every $1,000 of a property’s assessed value, and TCC’s Fiscal Year 2027 budget includes $58.5 million, or nearly 43% of its revenue from this local source.
Hess’s proposal for the merger calls for all lower-division coursework, for both OSU-Tulsa and OSU Tulsa Community College students, to be taught by community college faculty.
During an interview, Hess reiterated that is driven by a desire to use taxpayer money efficiently in order to produce more Tulsa graduates with bachelor’s degrees. And he pointed to his plan’s numerous measures to ensure all ad valorem money would continue to be used in Tulsa for the benefit of Tulsans and overseen by the two Tulsa governing boards that already oversee that money.
Would he want to see his vision imposed or forced upon TCC?
“Absolutely not,” Hess said. “That is not who we are. We’re offering a solution, and if Tulsa would like that solution, we’d love to provide it. What we will do, in the absence of an agreement of some type here, we will just continue to grow organically in Tulsa, and because we think Tulsa deserves that.”
Chrys Melissinos, president of TCC’s Student Government Association, said publicity of a possible merger between TCC and OSU-Tulsa took him and his classmates by surprise at the beginning of the fall semester and its implications are still not well understood.
“I can’t talk about what other students think, but it is definitely interesting to me,” said Melissinos, a 24-year-old from Greece who is one of about 200 international students at TCC. “OSU-Tulsa is already one of the strongest transfer opportunities at TCC. In order to get into OSU, you have to apply and then reapply for your scholarships.
“If that collaboration meant I could automatically transfer my scholarships, that would be great,” he said. “But prices at TCC are more friendly, so I think it’s important to mention that TCC students aren’t going for the college experience. We come here for a financially friendly college.”
The idea to create a public, comprehensive, four-year university in Tulsa dates back nearly three decades.
Kathy Taylor, Tulsa’s mayor from 2006 to 2009, said she believes more transparency is needed in discussions about the idea in its current form.
“For years, we have heard, ‘If only Tulsa had a four-year option, life would be perfect,’” she said. “I challenge that premise. We really need to dig deep into the data to see if the data follows. What I would love to see us look at together is the allocation of ad valorem funding. Maybe OU and OSU need part of that allocation; it seems like that’s where the focus is. We can sit down at a table and look at where the needs are for the next decade.”
Goodson pointed to both the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa and the private University of Tulsa as significant factors in assessing the needs of Tulsa’s higher education system as a whole.
No representative of OU was made available for an interview. An email from a university spokesperson attributed comments to OU President Joe Harroz touting the school’s transfer pathways between TCC and the OU Polytechnic Institute.
With new leadership, TU is positioning itself to compete better for local students and expand enrollment.
Be it a public university or a private one, Tulsans want accessibility and a university responsive to the needs of the community, said TU President Stacy Leeds, who recently made headlines by announcing plans to slash annual tuition and fees from $54,000 to $25,000 beginning in fall 2027.
“There is no question; if we want to move Tulsa forward, we definitely need more four-year degrees and we need more interaction between industry, non-profits and universities,” she said. “A research university that can deliver on new inventions and new research discoveries has to be a part of that conversation.”
Without weighing in specifically on the OSU-TCC merger idea, Leeds said collaboration among higher education leaders is the key to better serving Tulsa.
“To me, the path forward is we all figure out what each other’s strengths are and help each other and move forward for the benefit of Tulsa,” she said. “What does or doesn’t happen at OSU or TCC or with others, we all know where we need to be in the next 20 years.
“It’s going to take a whole lot more of each of us to get there,” Leeds said.
This article was originally published by Oklahoma Watch. You can see the original story here.