HOUSTON

As Texas Southern University celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, university administrators are hoping a financial bail-out and accountability plan will help the historically Black college survive at least another fifty years.

In exchange for something between $8 million and $12 million from the often tight-fisted Texas legislature, TSU officials have agreed to maintain a schedule to fix the financial aid problems of the 7,700student university. About half of that money is supposed to keep the institution, from which 75 percent of its students receive financial aid. out of the red this fiscal year. The agreement is an attempt by administrators to stave off outright state control of the school, once known as Texas State University for Negroes, whose historic role in educating Houston's Black community has ignited impassioned loyalties.

"It was through TSU that Houston Blacks developed a middle class," says Zoia Jones, a 1960 graduate and president of the Houston Chapter of the TSU Alumni Association.

The financial plight of the college has drawn statewide interest, especially among African Americans, because Texas Southern remains the only independent public Black university in Texas. It boasts a who's who of powerful alumni, including the late U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, and claims to have graduated more minority lawyers than any school in the state. In a show of support, March 21 was designated TSU Day by the Texas Black Legislative Caucus.

In his inaugural speech, TSU President James M. Douglas, a Houston native and law school alumnus, offered an upbeat vision of the institution's future: "Texas Southern University will survive because its founders and those who followed built our university on a rock. With your help we will continue to build upon a rock."

Douglas and his legislative supporters have a lot riding on their shoulders in the next few months. For about a year, The University That Sweatt Built, a bittersweet reference to the 1947 Sweatt v. Painter anti-segregation court case that resulted in TSU's state funding, has been buried under a mudslide of fiscal woes linked to financial aid mismanagement. The U.S. Department of Education, claiming that the university owes it as much as $13 million in misspent financial aid dollars over several years, has placed it on a reimbursement system. That system requires Texas Southern to pay students financial aid, then file for reimbursement showing proof that students qualify. The cumbersome and time-consuming procedure has left the university cash poor.