The Appalachian School of Law in Grundy is considering a merger with Roanoke College due to low enrollment and a lack of money.
The Buchanan County Board of Supervisors discussed the potential change during an emergency meeting Friday that was called just a day prior.
It’s unclear why the meeting sprang up so unexpectedly. At the start of the meeting, board chair Craig Stiltner said its purpose was to decide whether to allow the private law school to merge with Roanoke College in Salem. Stiltner said that both the board of supervisors and the county industrial development authority would need to OK such a move.
The school was founded in 1994 in part to boost Buchanan County’s economy. A 1996 agreement between the law school and Buchanan County granted ASL its academic and library buildings, along with some renovation and operations funding.
ASL president and dean David Western did not respond to an interview request on Friday about whether the terms of the compact could limit the school’s relocation options.
Toward the end of the nearly four-hour meeting, the board voted unanimously to table the issue and send it to a committee for further study. Stiltner and supervisor Trey Adkins will lead that committee.
“Roanoke College has been involved in confidential conversations with the Appalachian School of Law,” a spokesperson for the private college said in a statement late Friday. “We believe in their mission and although there are many details to consider, we remain eager about what could be possible together. At this time, no formal agreement has been met, but we will keep you apprised of any developments.”
Roanoke College, which has about 1,760 full-time students, does not have a law program of its own. College President Frank Shushok Jr. was present via Zoom for part of the meeting but did not speak.
A key point repeated by supervisors and a few stakeholders at the meeting, including representatives of the nearby Appalachian College of Pharmacy, was that the relocation of the school could be a major blow for the rural county’s economy.
Fewer than 200 students attend ASL, which employs around 40 full-time faculty and staff.
Buchanan County had a population of about 20,000 in 2020, according to Census Bureau data. Estimates from the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia show that the county’s population has dropped to about 19,000 over the past five years.
“Buchanan County has made tremendous efforts to diversify the economy and the law school is a leading example,” Del. Will Morefield, R-Tazewell County, said in a statement Friday. “For the law school leadership to wait until the last minute to propose such a significant change to [the] Board of Supervisors is unacceptable. The leadership of the law school should make every effort to work with local leaders to ensure the school remains in Buchanan County.”
Law school has financial runway of just a few months, dean says
Infrastructure constraints in the county are part of the college’s struggle to remain open, Western said by Zoom during Friday’s meeting.
“Even though we have [students] that are interested in coming to law school, we have no more houses on our housing list to help our students go to school here,” he said.
He also said that stricter federal student loan limits for graduate students under the Trump administration have made it more difficult for some prospective students to commit to attending.
The law school charges tuition of nearly $42,000, though Western confirmed to the board of supervisors Friday that tuition tends to get heavily discounted to recruit students, sometimes by as much as 70%.
ASL currently has 184 students, Western said, but in order for the school to be sustainable, it needs 300 students enrolled.
The law school currently has a deficit of $500,000, Western said. Two years ago, it had a nearly $4 million deficit, he said.
ASL doesn’t have the cash flow to keep it afloat for much longer, Western said.
He told supervisors that the school needs about $2.5 million to remain open through spring 2026. For it to survive longer-term, it needs funds closer to $10 million.
Right now, the law school doesn’t have enough cash to show the American Bar Association, its accreditor, that it has sufficient money to teach out current classes if it were to close, Western said.
Supervisors expressed concerns that without financial help from the county, the school would close or leave. But they also worried that continuing to support ASL may not ensure long-term sustainability for it.
“If you walk away from hard, you’re only going to find more hard,” supervisor Jeff Cooper said.
The discussion about the future of ASL on Friday overlapped with conversation about the possibility of Buchanan General Hospital partnering with the University of Pikeville in Kentucky on a medical school program.
A representative from that university attended via Zoom, but did not speak because Adkins demanded the meeting only cover the law school issue, the sole agenda item for which it had been called.
Hospital leaders did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Dwayne Yancey contributed information to this report.