‘We’re ... on their timetable’: ECU chancellor explains stalled MrBeast partnership
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- ECU announced a MrBeast content-creator program in 2022 but launch stalled.
- ECU cites leadership turnover and new MrBeast business lines.
- MrBeast still employs hundreds locally while ECU continues to plan credential programs.
During a faculty meeting this month, East Carolina University Chancellor Philip Rogers provided the first public explanations for why his school’s content creator program with YouTuber and entrepreneur MrBeast has not materialized more than three years after the collaboration was announced.
“We’re working on their timetable a little bit in terms of their ability to dig into this as deeply as they have in the past,” he said during a Nov. 4 ECU Faculty Senate meeting in Greenville.
Rogers was responding to an attendee’s question about the status of the partnership between the school and Greenville native Jimmy Donaldson, who posts on the world’s most-followed YouTube channel under his MrBeast moniker.
In November 2022, ECU announced Donaldson would help launch an academic content creator program at the public university. They projected that the Eastern North Carolina city of Greenville could become a hub for those learning to work in this emerging digital space. ECU initially predicted the program would “launch in six to 12 months”; today, the school has taken down the program’s webpage and has not shared when courses might begin.
“The university continues with our intention to develop an educational credentialing workforce program,” ECU chief communications officer Jeannine Manning Hutson wrote in a June email to The News & Observer.
Rogers’ comments to faculty last week expanded on the official ECU statement. He highlighted substantial leadership changes within the MrBeast organization since the five-year exclusive program deal was reached.
“Their leadership team has spent a considerable amount of time getting up to speed on what their business priorities are as an organization,” Roger said. “They’re growing rapidly. They are developing lots of new lines of business.”
As it waits, ECU has continued to “dive deep” into conceptualizing a credentialed program around content creation, Rogers said. MrBeast’s YouTube account currently has 450 million subscribers. There he posts a range of lucrative giveaways, eccentric stunts and grand philanthropic efforts. One recent stunt featured Donaldson offering cash to UNC-Chapel Hill students to pay for their tuition.
Donaldson, 27, has launched new ventures in the past few years, including an Amazon Studios reality competition called “Beast Games” and his snack brand Feastables. Last year, MrBeast parted with his longtime manager and hired Silicon Valley entrepreneur and venture capitalist Jeffrey Housenbold to be his company’s president and chief operating officer.
MrBeast’s headquarters are in Greenville, a city of around 90,000 where Donaldson graduated from high school and began making videos. Despite reporting in multiple news outlets, Donaldson never enrolled at the major local university, though he has filmed stunts at ECU facilities. In a statement provided to The N&O, MrBeast representatives say his company continues to impact Greenville even though the content creator program has stalled.
“While current company leadership and ECU are having ongoing discussions evaluating the future direction of any program, MrBeast continues to permanently employ several hundred local residents and hundreds more temporarily on different projects, making a significant impact on the local economy,” a MrBeast spokesperson wrote.
The ECU Faculty Senate is an elected group of faculty representatives at the school. The member’s question to Rogers referenced an October article in USA Today with the headline “What happened to MrBeast’s East Carolina University academic program? No one will say.”
This story was originally published November 11, 2025 at 3:56 PM with the headline "‘We’re ... on their timetable’: ECU chancellor explains stalled MrBeast partnership."
