Dive Brief:
- Medaille University's board of trustees voted Monday to close the institution amid sizable financial difficulties. The announcement came just days after Medaille's plans to be acquired by nearby Trocaire College fell through.
- “Medaille has been under significant budgetary constraints over the last several months due to several factors, including declining enrollment, outstanding liabilities and other challenges that are affecting colleges and universities across the region, state and nation," Lori Quigley, the university's interim president, said in a statement.
- Trocaire and Medaille, both located in western New York, announced their intention to merge back in April. But the deal fell through Thursday due to undisclosed challenges.
Dive Insight:
Medaille will remain in operation until August 31, according to a university statement. Students who can graduate before September will still earn their degree from Medaille, and faculty and staff will help with the remaining students through the teach-out process.
Medaille's financial struggles are not new. Declining enrollment has plagued the university over the past decade, with its student body plummeting from almost 2,600 students in fall 2012 to around 1,800 students in fall 2021,
In April, Quigley had cited declining birth rates in western New York and lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as motivating factors for the planned merger.
During the pandemic, Medaille dramatically cut its staff and programming and retracted tenure through a rewrite of its faculty handbook, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Medaille’s shuttering is the latest in a series of college closures coming after failed mergers.
In April 2022, Marymount California University announced its closure after the collapse of an intended merger with Saint Leo University. And a few months later, San Francisco Art Institute said it would no longer operate as a college after its plan to be absorbed by the University of San Francisco fell through.
