Dive Brief:
- Lourdes University plans to close at the end of the 2025-26 academic year after facing “mounting financial pressures driven by declining enrollment, rising costs and a funding model that is increasingly unsustainable,” its trustee board and founding religious order announced Wednesday.
- The university said it would have teach-out agreements for students in the coming weeks, as well as other finalized details about its closure.
- The Catholic institution in Ohio is one of several religious institutions to shutter in recent years. Most recently, Providence Christian College announced this week it would close at the end of the 2025-26 academic year.
Dive Insight:
The decision to shutter the university “reflects a sober assessment of what can be sustained responsibly while preserving the quality and integrity that define Lourdes,” the announcement said.
As it winds down, the university tapped a new president to lead it from the Sisters of St. Francis of Sylvania, the religious order that founded and sponsors the institution. Nancy Linenkugel has taken over the role from William Bisset to be Lourdes’ 13th and final president. Most recently, she served as congregational minister of the religious order.
Founded in 1958 as a junior college, Lourdes today offers dozens of undergraduate majors and minors, as well as several graduate programs.
The university’s enrollment has fallen dramatically over the past decade and a half. Between 2021 and 2024, fall headcount dropped more than 13% to 964 students, according to federal data. And that’s down by about a third from 2018 levels and almost two-thirds from 2011.
In the fiscal year 2024, Lourdes reported a $2.8 million operating deficit as its net tuition and fee revenue fell more than 7% year over year, according to its latest financials.
The institution also carried some $18.1 million in liabilities for the year, including $13.9 million in long-term debt tied to bonds and loans. At the same time, its endowment was valued at $9.4 million, most of it with donor restrictions on it.
During fiscal 2024, Lourdes received an additional $7.3 million in cash, as well as millions more in nonfinancial assets, from the Sisters of St. Francis.
The university’s board and Sisters of St. Francis of Sylvania referenced this mounting financial burden for the religious order in its closure announcement.
“The Sisters can no longer continue to subsidize the University at the level required to sustain its operations,” the announcement said.
Like many private liberal arts institutions, numerous Catholic colleges have struggled with a dwindling pool of high school graduates and rising costs in recent years, leading several to shutter or merge, or form other strategic partnerships.
Lourdes’ board and Sisters of St. Francis of Sylvania they could find no viable alternative to closing.
“We explored possible paths forward with care and seriousness,” the trustees said. “Ultimately, the Sylvania Franciscan Sisters who sponsor Lourdes University concluded that continuing operations beyond this academic year is financially unsustainable.”
