Dive Brief:
- In a bid to address "serious" financial issues, the College of St. Elizabeth is cutting 17 professors and considering additional options.
- One option would see men admitted to its women's college.
- The cuts, which take effect by the end of the year, will affect all of the school's divisions — a women's college, a coed graduate division, and a coed undergraduate continuing education — and include 10 full-time and six Sisters of Charity.
Dive Insight:
In 2012, the U.S. Department of Education gave the College of St. Elizabeth a score of 2.2 (on a scale of -1 to 3) for financial responsibility, though the letters sent to those cut refer to "serious financial challenges over the past several years.” Once the cuts take effect, only two nuns from the Sisters of Charity, which founded the college in 1899, will be left among its full-time faculty. The college also laid off 14 staff last year, and the latest cuts are raising questions on campus about the school's direction and its president's commitment to its Catholic vision.
Earlier this week, St. Elizabeth announced that it would freeze tuition, which jumped 4% last year to $31,095 including fees. If the school ultimately ends up admitting men to its women's college, it will join the likes of Wilson College and Pine Manor College, both of which have made similar decisions in the last few years.