This audio was auto-generated. Please let me know if you have any feedback.
Dive Briefing:
- Clarks Summit University, Announced Monday in Pennsylvania will be closed In the midst of ongoing financial difficulties.
- In June The Baptist university has furloughed all of its staff to help close its budget deficit. At the time, President James Little said Clarks Summit planned to welcome students back in the fall.
- But Clarks Summit’s board and staff have “exhausted all viable solutions to fill the significant financial gap,” the university said this week, and it will stop offering classes in August.
Dive Insight:
By 2016, enrollment at Clarks Summit, formerly known as Baptist Bible College, had declined sharply. The college enrolled 552 students in the fall of 2022, less than half the 1,107 students it enrolled in the fall of 2012, according to federal data.
Clarks Summit did not elaborate on its financial difficulties, but Tax Documents It shows that it faces a budget deficit of about $1.9 million in fiscal year 2023.
Before the closure was announced, the university attempted to fill the gap through fundraising.
But that hasn't had the desired effect. Lytle announced his leave, warning that while the university had made progress in fundraising, there was a “significant financial gap.” He and the rest of the managers agreed to work without pay during the vacation, as did some of their staff.
At the time, Little sounded optimistic, citing projections of increased enrollment in online graduate and seminary programs.
But about a month later, that optimism faded when the university announced its closure.
Students enrolled in summer classes may complete the semester. However, those who had planned to enroll or continue their studies in the fall will have to find a new college. Clarks Summit We developed an educational plan with two other religious institutions. Liberty University in Virginia Cairn University in Pennsylvania.
Both institutions will offer a “simplified admissions process” to current and new Clarks Summit students. The closed college also said it would honor all Clarks Summit credits “under certain conditions.”
Clarks Summit academic advisors will be available to assist students with transfers through July 12, and the Registrar’s Office will remain open for 90 days to facilitate this process.
In its FAQs about student deposits, the college said, “When property and assets are sold and the proceeds are distributed to your creditors in the order provided by law. If there are sufficient funds, your claims will be paid in full.”
Clarks Summit isn't the only faith-based college to recently announce closure.
For example, Eastern Nazarene College, a nonprofit organization in Massachusetts, Last week, after years of “serious financial headwinds.”
The two colleges followed parallel paths to ruin. Eastern Nazarene also had a steep decline in enrollment, a budget gap, and administrators said they were running out of options to avoid closure.