Morgan State University is rebooting its effort to launch a medical school, aiming to help usher in a new generation of diverse doctors who might otherwise find a career in medicine out of reach.

David Wilson, president of the historically Black public university in Northeast Baltimore, said in an interview that officials will spend the next two years working to open the Morgan State University School of Medicine. The nonprofit program, he said, will be more affordable for students while eventually boosting the number of doctors to fill a nationwide shortage in underserved communities.

The new plan, for example, calls for its medical school tuition to be half of what was projected when Morgan State earlier pursued a now-shelved plan to start a new medical school with a for-profit company.

“This will be the first public medical school at a HBCU in this country,” said Wilson about the nation’s historically Black colleges and universities. Today, four HBCUs have their own medical schools and another is planned for Xavier University in New Orleans, but all of those universities are private.

“The goal is to affiliate in such a way that cost is not the greatest inhibitor to medical school attendance,” he said. “That became a priority for us, which is why the nonprofit model is a very attractive model for us.”

This charts a new course for Morgan State, which has debated opening a school for a decade and announced a partnership five years ago with the private firm Salud Education LLC that planned to open a for-profit osteopathic medical school using Morgan’s name. Osteopathic schools have similar curriculums as traditional medical schools, but focus more on a holistic approach to care.

Salud, with its murky ownership and track record, made initial headway by submitting a proposal to Maryland’s Higher Education Commission and seeking accreditation. But the effort stalled, which Wilson attributed to the coronavirus pandemic and waning interest by investors in helping to fund such efforts at for-profit academic programs. In a joint statement to The Banner ahead of the Thursday announcement, Salud and Morgan State said they had reached “a mutual decision to end the affiliation agreements.”

Morgan’s new approach has advantages, Wilson said, from the likelihood of cheaper tuition to the university’s full control over hiring staff and setting the curriculum. It also means Morgan alone will face the huge task of fundraising to build and maintain a new college during turbulent economic times.

Details about the school remain sparse, but officials said they expect a new school, and possibly student housing, to occupy the old Lake Clifton High School site, a 59-acre parcel that Morgan bought from the city in 2022.

The project is still years away from welcoming students to campus. Wilson projects the school will enroll as many as 120 students a year when it opens. But that may not happen until 2028 or even 2030, he added.

Morgan officials said the revamped project was possible because the university just received a $1.75 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop a comprehensive plan. The foundation works to boost diversity in health fields and close health disparities.

Enrollment by Black students and others from minority groups has dropped in medical schools in recent years, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. The association had already projected a general shortage of primary care physicians of 48,000 by 2034, which Morgan leaders say will hit harder in underserved communities, including in Baltimore.

Morgan State officials say they plan to tap alumni and the state for financial support, but will likely need substantial investment from philanthropic groups in order to see the project through to fruition.

“The model that we are receiving the Robert Wood Johnson funds for, it will help us put doctors in these communities,” said Endia M. DeCordova, Morgan’s vice president for institutional advancement. “We have an opportunity to pivot, show the philanthropic and investment communities what the return on their investment will be in Baltimore and Maryland.”

Wilson said Morgan State is also committed to making its medical school more affordable for people from diverse backgrounds.

While Salud had proposed tuition of around $55,000 a year, Wilson said they hoped to cut that figure in half. Officials said they were also encouraged by the recent investment of outside donors into medical school education, including Bloomberg Philanthropies, which donated $1 billion to Johns Hopkins University last year to make its program tuition-free for students for families earning less than $300,000 annually.

But first, Morgan officials need to hire consultants and fundraisers to formulate the plan and raise money. “I’m prepared to spend a lot of time knocking on doors,” Wilson said.