Accreditor Requests Closure of the King’s College

[bjcheung77]

Sad, another one might be biting the dust due to finances... Low enrollment, lost donors, what else can go wrong?

"Faced with the possibility of closure since January, the King’s College’s chances of survival took another blow Thursday when its accreditor announced that it has asked the small evangelical college in New York City to “submit a substantive change request for institutional closure” by Aug. 11."

"The King’s College, which enrolled around 300 students last fall, has faced severe financial pressures as it lost wealthy mega-donors in recent years and spent heavily to develop online programs that quickly closed after falling far short of lofty enrollment goals."

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/quic...gs-college

[ss20ts]

Well with 300 students, how can a college really be a college? There's not enough students to offer all of the courses needed to complete a degree. According to Wiki, their endowment is $148 million so what are they sitting on all that money for?

ETA: Never mind. Different King's College. The Wiki page is about the one in Wilkes-Barre, PA not NYC. How many King's Colleges are there?

[LevelUP]

A lot of these small colleges with under 2000 students will be under a lot of pressure.

It's hard to run a school with so few students.

[Jonathan Whatley]

The King’s College – the four-year school forced to shut its doors to students in 2023 under a mountain of debt — is seeking to resume operations in an effort to “create a significant center for Christian higher learning.”  

In a four-page request for proposal, the private Christian college’s board of trustees said it “intends to gift the college, including its charter and intellectual property … to likeminded evangelical Christians who propose the most compelling vision to resume the operations of the college to serve Kingdom purposes.” […]

“All tangible assets have been sold, with proceeds used to retire debt,” the school said in the proposal. “Settlement and release agreements have been negotiated with the largest remaining creditors. Funding required to implement these agreements has been identified, and the Board intends for the College to be debt-free by mid-2025. TKC must either dissolve or present a go-forward plan to the New York State Education Department by July 15, 2025.”

As a result, King’s has put forth an aggressive timeline. Anyone interested needs to submit a letter by Feb. 7 summarizing “the proposed vision and affirm faith alignment, planning capacity and the adequacy of resources,” King’s said in the proposal.

Exclusive: The King’s College Launches ‘Go-Forward Plan’ In An Effort To Reopen (Clemente Lisi, Religion Unplugged, January 22, 2025)

[ss20ts]

There's 2 things you never hear about together - NYC and evangelical Christian anything. Any college surviving in NYC is going to need a massive pile of cash. The real estate prices alone are astronomical.

[Jonathan Whatley]

Having sold the New York City physical campus, they could re-open online, they could move operations elsewhere in the state under the same state charter, or they could move the name to another state with a new state charter.

[Charles Fout]

Wow!

Is calling for closure extreme?

[Jonathan Whatley]

Wow!

Is calling for closure extreme?

Calling for closure isn't extreme if the institution's financial distress is extreme, which it appears to have been.

[ss20ts]

Wow!

Is calling for closure extreme?

It's already closed. They ran out of $$$$.