A master’s degree program at Ohio State will be suspended indefinitely because of budget constraints, a lack of applicants and restructuring of the School of Journalism and Communication.

The Kiplinger Public Affairs Journalism Program provides journalists from around the country an opportunity to earn their master’s degrees. Program participants receive a tuition waiver, a $10,00 fellowship and $12,500 for working as teaching assistants.

The program will halt at the end of August.

“The old model was not working as well as it used to,” said Knight Kiplinger, editor of Kiplinger Personal Finance and grandson of Willard Monroe Kiplinger, one of OSU’s first journalism graduates and the inspiration for the program.

Kiplinger said OSU has decided to emphasize the theoretical communications aspect of the journalism and communications school and de-emphasize traditional journalism.

“It is a very valid choice,” Kiplinger said. “OSU is building a fine department of mass communication theory.” But this is one reason why the Kiplinger program has been halted, he said.

John Wicklein, director of the program from 1984 to 1989 and a former reporter for the New York Times, said this is not a valid excuse to cut the program.

“It seems to me that at a time when the credibility of journalists is being questioned, a program that stresses journalistic ethics and careful journalistic research would be particularly worthy of a place at Ohio State,” he said.

During his tenure as director, Wicklein said the program received many more applications than it does now and had about 10 Kiplinger fellows, compared to this year’s four. Wicklein blames the decrease on OSU and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, which includes the School of Journalism and Communication.

“They do not have respect for journalism,” he said. Wicklein said the university and the school does little to promote the Kiplinger program and the journalism school in general.

Carroll Glynn, director of the School of Journalism and Communications, disagrees. She said the journalism school has an outstanding reputation across the country and said the decline in applicants is not the school’s fault.

“The responsibility for advertising and promoting the program rests solely with the director,” she said. “The decline is a recent phenomenon.”

Glynn said the role of the journalism school is to financially help run the program, determine how it fits into the graduate curriculum and to provide a master’s degree to its fellows.

Pamela Hollie was the former Kiplinger program director. She left OSU in August.

Glynn said the program is funded equally by both the Kiplinger Foundation and the journalism and communications school. Budget constraints in both areas contributed to the program’s suspension, she said.

Thomas A. Schwartz, interim program director, said both past and present Kiplinger fellows are disappointed with the program’s suspension, but said the OSU journalism school is still a reputable place for students to earn a master’s degree.

“The school continues to have a very strong journalism component,” he said.

In a letter to the program’s participants, Kiplinger said the foundation is still committed to furthering journalism education at OSU.

“I am confident that we will work something out, and you will not be the last Kiplinger Fellows at Ohio State,” he said. However, Kiplinger said the program will possibly be restructured if and when it is reintroduced.

“One of the options we are looking at is to have the students come to the state and study but not receive a degree,” he said.