Southern State Community College (SSCC) will sell its Fayette Campus to Kettering Health for $2 million, college officials announced this week.
The SSCC Board of Trustees approved the sale at a special meeting Tuesday evening. Kettering Health will use the building as a health facility following renovations.
Since the recovery of the Great Recession in 2008, overall enrollment at the college’s two smallest facilities, the previous North Campus in Wilmington, and the Fayette Campus in Washington Court House, has been steadily declining, according to SSCC officials.
Earlier this year, the college sold its North Campus to the Clinton County Board of Commissioners to be used as office space.
SSCC President Kevin Boys noted that the pandemic accelerated the college’s efforts to respond to declining enrollment by engaging partners that could more fully utilize the Fayette facility.
“Among conversations with potential partners, this buyer expressed an interest in purchasing the facility so that substantial renovation could take place to meet its needs. The buyer and the college are leaving the door open for future shared use of the facility and class offerings at the site,” said Boys. “The campus will remain open for spring semester 2022.”
In spite of the lower enrollment at the campus, students from Fayette County continue to take classes online, at Southern State’s Central Campus in Hillsboro, and most notably at Miami Trace and Washington City High Schools.
“All of our enrollment growth prior to the pandemic had been in the online course offerings and in the College Credit Plus program in which many more students are participating, but at their local high schools, not on our campuses,” said Boys. “The pandemic only accelerated this trend.”
SSCC board chairman Brian Prickett added, “Higher education has been changing and the need for brick and mortar is simply not as important as it once was. This sale will further enable the College to concentrate our technical programs at our central location in Hillsboro and further grow our online presence for students throughout our region.”
