Dive Temporary:
- Limestone College, in South Carolina, might transfer to online-only lessons or shut down completely within the close to future because it wrestles with a monetary disaster, the 179-year-old establishment introduced Wednesday.
- To keep away from closing or going completely on-line, the non-public nonprofit’s board of trustees stated it will want an “immediate” infusion of $6 million in emergency funding, although it didn’t point out the place it would discover the funds.
- Limestone attributed its monetary woes to enrollment declines, rising prices and “long-standing structural pressures going through small, non-public establishments.”
Dive Perception:
Describing the present disaster as a “turning level,” Limestone’s announcement Wednesday listed a number of attainable paths ahead, and in doing so the college threw normal uncertainty over its future.
“Whereas full closure stays a danger, the establishment is contemplating a state of affairs that might discontinue all in-person educational operations and all different actions, together with athletics, in Gaffney,” the college stated. “The totally on-line mannequin would successfully finish the standard faculty campus expertise.”
Limestone’s board is ready to fulfill April 22 to debate subsequent steps.
Most of the Christian college’s travails stem from a drop-off in college students. Between 2018 and 2023, fall enrollment plummeted 27% to 1,782 college students.
Below monetary stress, Limestone has been leaning closely on its endowment, the college’s financials present. In 2023, with approval from the state lawyer normal, the college suspended a coverage of spending not more than 5% of the endowment’s complete worth. Between fiscal years 2023 and 2024, Limestone’s web belongings fell by greater than $12 million, to $61 million.
With money and investments dwindling, and amid persistent funds deficits — to the tune of $9.2 million in fiscal 2024, following an $11.4 million hole in 2023 — the college’s auditors warned that it could not be capable to proceed working as a “going concern.”
Limestone at the moment gives on-line programs along with in-person lessons, however it trumpets what it stated is $150 million financial influence on South Carolina’s Cherokee County from its campus. That sum could be imperiled with a transfer to online-only operations.
“This potential shift to online-only instruction threatens not solely the campus expertise, however native jobs and the cultural presence Limestone has supplied for almost two centuries,” the establishment stated.
The $6 million emergency fund — which the college’s trustees proposed with out detailing — would “stabilize operations and provides the college the chance to pursue long-term options that protect its on-campus identification,” Limestone stated.
“Limestone stays dedicated to our college students and we are going to work immediately with present college students to assist them determine the very best path to efficiently full their instructional journey,” board Chair Randall Richardson stated in a press release.
Different faculties in recent times have likewise sought emergency money funding infusions to remain afloat in troubled occasions.
For instance, Northland School, a personal nonprofit in Wisconsin, final yr introduced a multimillion-dollar Hail Mary fundraising marketing campaign. With out $12 million, the faculty stated final spring, it will be compelled to shut.
Northland wound up falling effectively wanting that aim, however pursued a turnaround on what it referred to as “transformative” items and an initiative to pare again its applications. Regardless of these efforts, the faculty introduced in February that it’ll shut on the finish of the present educational yr.
Different equally located faculties, together with Hampshire School, have had higher luck after an existential fundraising blitz. After falling into monetary misery, Hampshire launched a $60 million fundraising marketing campaign that saved it afloat and helped it revamp its applications and operations.
