OHIO — As protests surrounding the Israel-Hamas war continue across the U.S., calls for divesting remain at the forefront.

There are questions about what divesting will mean for colleges with ties to Israel and what might the impact be on finances at schools. 

What You Need To Know

  • Experts say Ohio colleges cannot divest because of the way the law is structured
  • Spending for endowments, scholarships and other programs could be impacted as divestment occurs 
  • Some say possible trade-offs to full divestments could include investing in individual stocks

Jared Pincin, associate professor of economics at Cedarville University, said not every university or state agency can divest.

“Ohio colleges cannot divest because of the way that the law is structured,” he said.

If the law was written in a way that they could, investment teams would have to determine if they would be giving up any sort of yield or gain that could come from investing in specific companies.

Ultimately, Pincin said he sees it as a trade-off because the potential impacts depend on what is divested and where that money was slated to go.

“Maybe you are getting rid of a stock from a company that is yielding a higher investment return and now you’re going to get a lower investment return. This would, of course, impact spending across the endowment. It could lead to just lower spending in general across the university. It could be scholarships. That could be some new project,” he said.

Pincin said colleges could potentially come to a compromise on divestments by controlling the types of investments.

“Instead of forcing them to divest from any connection to Israel, investment teams could instead stop investing directly with a company, so own the individual stock,” he said.