CLAYTON — The 100-year-old Fontbonne University will close in fall of 2025 and the 16-acre campus will be bought by Washington University.
After struggling with declining enrollments and budget deficits for years, “the financial position of the university was determined to be unsustainable for the long term,” according to a Fontbonne press release Monday.
University leaders had been working on a partnership with other colleges as recently as last month but were unable to strike a deal, officials said Monday.
“This difficult decision was not made lightly. Despite the best efforts of faculty, staff, administration and our faithful supporters, we have faced challenges, including more than 15 years of enrollment decline heading into the enrollment cliff, the impact of COVID, and many other financial struggles impacting small, private institutions like ours across the nation,” Nancy Blattner, Fontbonne president, said in a statement.
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There will be no freshmen in fall 2024 but classes will continue through summer 2025.
A sale price for the campus has not been released. Washington U. leaders said they will lease the property back to Fontbonne “for a nominal amount as they wind down operations.”
Washington U. does not have plans yet for the adjacent campus, according to the statement.
Several administrators have left Fontbonne in recent months after the university announced the elimination of 21 academic majors and 19 faculty positions in budget cuts of more than $2 million.
The private Catholic institution in Clayton has experienced a 60% loss in enrollment and declining revenues topping $14 million over the past decade.
“This has been expected for a long time. It is a local story that is part of a national trend. Additional private colleges in Missouri and Illinois will also close in the coming months,” said Gary Stocker, St. Louis-based higher education analyst and founder of College Viability.
This story will be updated.
View life in St. Louis through the Post-Dispatch photographers’ lenses. Photos by Post-Dispatch photographers, edited by Jenna Jones.
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