Life University plans to sell most of its Marietta campus to Southern Polytechnic State University, a deal that will allow the embattled chiropractic school to shed its $30.7 million debt, officials announced Tuesday.

Southern Polytech President Lisa Rossbacher told members of the state Board of Regents that her university's foundation plans to purchase Life's campus by June.

"This would address our critical space needs and support our neighboring institution," Rossbacher said later in a statement. "It is a win-win."

Life plans to lease back about half of the property, including the classroom buildings, to continue its academic programs, said Charles Ribley, chairman of the school's board of trustees.

Life opened in 1974 and by the 1990s had become the nation's largest chiropractic school. As recently as 1997, the school had 3,500 chiropractic students. That enrollment plummeted in an accreditation crisis that began in June 2002, when an Arizona-based agency -- the Council on Chiropractic Education -- revoked its accredited status.

The accreditation eventually was restored by a federal judge, pending the outcome of a lawsuit that Life filed against the accrediting agency. The parties settled the lawsuit in June, in a deal that allowed the university to retain its chiropractic standing.

Life now has about 1,100 students, Ribley said, about 750 of whom are enrolled in the nearly four-year chiropractic program, a degree that costs students almost $60,000 in tuition.

The enrollment rebounded somewhat after the university's chiropractic accreditation was restored under court order, but not enough for Life to maintain its largest asset -- a 125-acre, wooded campus south of the Marietta Square. The property that will be sold to Southern Polytech includes the athletic fields and a gymnasium that was home to the championship Running Eagles basketball teams. The athletics program was dismantled more than a year ago.

The Life University campus was appraised in 2002 at $52 million. It is just south of Southern Polytechnic, and the two universities share a road.

Southern Polytechnic, which has about 4,000 students, plans to use the Life property for laboratories, classrooms, recreation facilities and student housing.

Ribley, a longtime Life University trustee, said its leaders did what they felt they had to do to keep the university open. The declining enrollment has frustrated the university's attempts to repay a bond issue for campus improvements, he said.

"It's something we have to do, let's put it that way," he said. "So we can continue on with our program. It's not a negative. That's all I can say."