Despite selling six properties to Trocaire College worth nearly $2 million, Medaille University will not be acquired after all, placing its 148-year-old legacy in limbo.
With a smaller pool of available students, a growing wake of attention to mental health and a swelling public skepticism of higher education, these small private college and university leaders in Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts and Maine are redefining their job to guide their schools in murky waters.
Citing pandemic issues and poor enrollment numbers, Buffalo-based Medaille University marks another private school in the Northeast too financially strapped to continue operations. Instead of closing, however, they're merging.
Dedicated to embracing an evolving higher education landscape that's cost-effective, career-minded and digitally native, Vermont has begun to revitalize its once-flailling student body. Two big initiatives pushing this change are recent school mergers and a powerful free community college pipeline.