CHARLESTON — Gov. Jim Justice’s efforts to insert himself into whether Alderson Broaddus University can keep offering degrees failed, with state regulators voting Monday to pull the private university’s degree-granting authority.

The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission held an emergency meeting Monday afternoon when it revoked Alderson Broaddus’ authorization to confer degrees in the state.

“It is my recommendation that it is in the best interest of students, both financially and academically, to revoke Alderson Broaddus University’s authorization to confer degrees in West Virginia,” said HEPC Chancellor Sarah Armstrong Tucker during Monday’s emergency meeting.

“While it’s no secret that we’ve had challenges with AB being forthcoming with information and working with us, I can’t stress enough how critical it is right now for the leadership at AB to put their students first,” Tucker said. “We stand ready as we always have to support them in helping students with the next step.”

The order prevents Alderson Broaddus from conferring any degrees effective Dec. 31 and the university is prohibited from enrolling any more students effective Monday.

According to Alderson Broaddus, 625 students had enrolled for the fall semester. The order would allow students expected to graduate during the fall semester to complete their degrees.

The vote likely could have been held at the end of last week, but a previously scheduled emergency meeting was canceled after Justice released a statement Friday asking HEPC to delay any action until officials in the Governor’s Office could meet with Alderson Broaddus leaders, HEPC officials and representatives of the Legislature to find pathways to keeping the school open.

Justice, speaking Monday afternoon during his weekly administrative briefing from the Capitol, said that meeting did occur earlier Monday morning. He said he was on the phone Sunday night with school officials and lawmakers.

“The one thing I wanted to make sure everyone would do is double-triple check as to if there is a way, if there is anything we missed. That was my desire,” Justice said.

But while the governor sought last week to delay any HEPC action, Justice said Monday that the HEPC should be left alone to take whatever action it sees fit.

“What we should do right now is allow the school their due and allow the HEPC to be able to do their job. I am 100% confident in Sarah Tucker and the HEPC that they’ll do everything they can absolutely do, but they’re going to do their job, and that’s what they should absolutely do … at the end of the day, we’ll come to a resolution. It may not be the resolution some want, but it will be fair and an effort that everybody’s made to do anything and everything we can to save the school.”

Alderson Broaddus, a Baptist-affiliated liberal studies university in Barbour County with roots going back 150 years, has multi-million-dollar debt, negative cash flow, decreasing student enrollment and has racked up nearly a year’s worth of overdue utility bills to the tune of more than $776,000 according to filings with the Public Service Commission.

Andrea Bucklew, the interim president of Alderson Broaddus, said the university has raised $450,000 since the HEPC’s July 12 meeting.

“Everything is moving in the right direction,” Bucklew told the HEPC Monday. “We’re continuing to do what we told the HEPC that we would do. Our students are always our first and only priority, so we are thinking of those students who are ready to move in to either start or continue their education.”

The university made a deal with the City of Philippi for a payment plan with a one-time payment of nearly $67,000. Tucker said Alderson Broaddus made the payment, but the amount owed to Philippi was larger than reported because it did not pay its bills for July. Also, it took 10 days of fundraising to collect the funds to pay the $67,000.

Tucker said that Alderson Broaddus’ financial condition was about $500,000 in the red with its lines of credit nearly maxed out.

“Their balanced budget is based entirely on projected enrollment,” Tucker said. “As word has circulated over the past weeks about the financial dire circumstances at Alderson Broaddus, it seems even less likely now that they will meet the goals that they have set before.”

Tucker also said the teachout plans the university was supposed to develop that would advise students and families on options, such as transferring to other colleges/universities or requesting transcripts, were incomplete.

“A mid-semester closure seems to be inevitable, leaving the students at grave financial and academic risk,” Tucker said. “To date, frankly very little has been done by AB on its own to provide teachout plans for students or to communicate to the campus community the dire situation the institution is in.”

Besides the actions taken Monday by HEPC, university officials have a meeting in Chicago today with the Higher Learning Commission, a regional college/university accreditation organization. The HLC once put the school on notice for its financial issues, though that designation was lifted two years ago.

Jim Garvin, Alderson Broaddus Board of Trustees chairman, urged the HEPC to delay action until university officials return from Chicago. Garvin argued that Monday’s emergency meeting possibly violated state open meetings laws and didn’t provide enough due process, even though Friday’s emergency meeting also would have been about the university’s degree-granting authority.

“We do not believe that the calling of this meeting meets the statutory requirements for an emergency meeting,” Garvin said. “It would be a violation of due process … that’s quite a lengthy list of challenges that the Chancellor presented. This is the first we’ve seen that exact list.”

“There is an appeal process after this,” said HEPC Chairman Andrew “Drew” Payne. “My inclination is we’ll have this meeting. If you don’t like the result, then you can appeal it.”

During Monday’s administration briefing Justice said he wished there was something more that could be done for Alderson Broaddus.

“I don’t think anybody wants the school to close. With all of this being said, it may very well be inevitable that is exactly what will happen and everything,” Justice said. “There is just so many mountains here and barriers that have been crossed, and not crossed necessarily in a wrong way, but the school has a lot of strikes against it right now. It may very well be inevitable.”