Fewer international students are enrolling at U.S. colleges, which could cost the country $1 billion, reports find
In the fall 2025 semester, new international student enrollment at U.S. institutions fell 17%, according to a recent report.www.cnbc.com
drew.edu
Madison is buying land from Drew:
"Under the purchase agreement the Borough of Madison will acquire the 47.3-acre Drew Forest Preserve to ensure its protection in perpetuity. In addition, the settlement provides for the sale of other surplus university land to support the development of multi-family, inclusionary residential housing, and includes the Borough’s acquisition of the Madison House property."
Drew University and Madison Borough Forest Agreement
Drew University & the Borough of Madison reach an agreement to protect and manage the Drew Forest, promoting conservation and community benefits.
www.ithaca.com
theithacan.org
too many colleges, not enough trade programs but most importantly, too many kids that should not be going to college doIthaca had a 27% decline in undergrad enrollment the past 6 years from 5,852 in 2019 to 4,268 in 2025, and is having budget issues.
Ithaca College Works to Decrease Budget Deficit Through Revenue Enhancement
Ithaca College has been working with Huron Consulting Group since October 2024 to identify strategies to close the budget deficit through a balance of cutting costs and increasing revenue. Administrators
Ithaca College restructures amid budget deficit - The Ithacan
President La Jerne Cornish said during the All-College Welcome that administrators are working to align the size of the faculty and staff with the student body size.
www.roi-nj.com
This sounds like an expansion effort that failed, and that GW is going to focus its resources on its core campus in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood in D.C. That makes sense to me. Perhaps other schools should be thinking about similar steps.GW sells Virginia campus
Officials said the sale to an undisclosed buyer will help strengthen GW's financial position and fund strategic framework initiatives but won't solve its structural budget deficit.gwhatchet.com
Announcing the Sale of GW’s Virginia Science and Technology Campus | Office of the President | The George Washington University
GW closed on the sale of VSTC. This decision is part of a broader strategy to strengthen GW’s long-term financial health and to invest in our academic mission.president.gwu.edu
www.stevens.edu
Missed this post last month. Ithaca College's situation is part of a greater trend in solvency concerns at many lower and mid-tier private colleges that have long proliferated in Upstate New York (WNY, CNY, North Country, Southern Tier and the Capital District) Although not well known outside New York, over the last couple years Cazenovia College, the College of Saint Rose, Wells College and Medaille College have all closed. Siena College and Elmira College are known to be in trouble and may, or may not, survive. Ithaca College will likely hang-on. But, the college was founded on the strength of its Music Department and until recently, Education was its largest Department. Both programs were essentially eliminated during the pandemic. An over-emphasis on STEM may actually be depressing enrollment at a college long considered a bastion of the liberal arts. Applications to New York's most prestigious colleges and universities continue to climb and, despite an across-the-board drop in enrollment at most SUNY colleges during the pandemic, numbers stabilized and have incrementally increased at most schools. Unfortunately, it appears that there are simply too many expensive, underwhelming private colleges in the more rural portions of the State. It seems likely that a number of other similarly-situated New York private colleges will also close. It will be interesting to see if the extinction continues father up the chain to impact venerable higher-tiered institutions like St. Lawrence, Clarkson, St. Bonaventure, LaMoyne or, possibly, even Bard or RPI.Ithaca had a 27% decline in undergrad enrollment the past 6 years from 5,852 in 2019 to 4,268 in 2025, and is having budget issues.
Ithaca College Works to Decrease Budget Deficit Through Revenue Enhancement
Ithaca College has been working with Huron Consulting Group since October 2024 to identify strategies to close the budget deficit through a balance of cutting costs and increasing revenue. Administrators
Ithaca College restructures amid budget deficit - The Ithacan
President La Jerne Cornish said during the All-College Welcome that administrators are working to align the size of the faculty and staff with the student body size.
St. Bonaventure has the highest enrollment it has ever had, and so it seems to be OK. It chose to invest in facilities that would attract students rather than cut the budget. Bard and RPI both have financial challenges, but both are located in the Hudson River Valley, by far the most attractive part of upstate New York. I wouldn't be inclined to worry about any of these schools. But the lower tier schools should be concerned.
BTW, Siena claims to be doing fine. https://www.siena.edu/news/story/siena-university-is-financially-strong-and-building-for-the-future/
I agree that it's unlikely that any of the semi-prestigious private New York colleges (those institutions commonly known to others beyond just a few counties) will go under, if for no other reason than that they have the resources to survive, even if it means spending down the principal on endowments. However, I also have good reason to suspect that there are far more institutions on the proverbial bubble with respect to sustainability than most are aware. Educational institutions, like most charitable entities, are notoriously slow to accept financial realities and adverse to addressing them until it's too late.
RPI has an excellent reputation -- there aren't many polytechs. Bard is a very different kind of school -- a lot of artsy types go there. (An example is the rock composer Billy Steinberg, who wrote Madonna's Like a Virgin and Linda Ronstadt's How Do I Make You.) George Soros gave Bard a lot of money a few years ago and its endowment is now $1 billion -- I suspect it will still be there after its president, Leon Botstein, loses his job for his association with Epstein. It's the littler schools with worse locations that will go under.
www.roi-nj.com
Whatever else you can say about Rowan, it is not afraid to be ambitious. Its student population is about 3X the size of Rutgers-Camden, yet the admissions profile of Rutgers-Camden is only slightly better.Rowan University unveils $690M development project, 5,000 jobs to be generated | ROI-NJ
Rowan University announced plans for a transformative $690 million West Campus Development Project.
Rowan University unveils $690M development project, 5,000 jobs to be generated | ROI-NJ
Rowan University announced plans for a transformative $690 million West Campus Development Project.
Rowan takes chances on funding that Rutgers would never take. That can be both good and bad, of course.
It’s funded by the South Jersey political machine. Norcross and crew have been pumping money into Rowan for 20+ years.
There's a story about it in today's Philadelphia Inquirer, but it's behind their pay wall. Rowan is putting up land that it purchased 25 years ago and that it has resisted selling for warehouse construction. The private developer will invest $60 million. The plan envisions that the project will get up to $400 million in state tax credits under a program established in 2020 that does not seem like it was specifically designed for any particular area of the state.
Which means Rowan will be on the hook for some unsavory bureaucratic stuff if the enrollment cliff hits them hard in about a decade or so. In this state I always side eye money coming in from Trenton.
Agree. NJ politicians, moreso than most pols, do not send money without a quid pro quo
Sounds like a good project. Connecting to PATH is probably a god idea. BTW, I am old enough to remember the ads for Palisades amusement park, which, I'm told, closed because developers got local government to condemn it for high-rise condos. "Skip the traffic and skip the fuss/ Take a public service bus/ Public service sure is great/ It takes you right up to the gate!" It's amazing how much useless information I retain from my youth.
Rowan has increased its enrollment so much over the past dozen years that they should be well-insulated from the enrollment cliff. But the analysis I summarized shows that their satellite campuses in Burlington, Cumberland, and Gloucester have had enrollment drops ranging from 24% to 34% over the past decade.
Heard discussion in Trenton a couple of years ago about Rowan moving their sports up to FCS. Will be interesting if this happens and if the state has an equal viewpoint of supporting that program.
That discussion seems to be continuing Rowan has been trying to find a developer to help it build a sports arena. But for the moment other projects (like this one) have higher priority.
Couldn't the project mean that there would be mass transit from NYC to the Met Life stadium? Or is that too far from the existing tracks?
Not talking about this construction project. Was talking about the state populous and the elected officials that complain about funding d1 athletics at Rutgers (falsely of course).
Satellite campuses are being ravaged in terms of enrollment drops. I know PSU consolidated a bunch of their satellite campuses or outright closed them. In all honesty I couldn't fathom going to a Rowan satellite campus if I was a HS kid. it's Rowan main campus or nothing. Feel like the Rowan satellite campuses are glorified community colleges.
