"Community colleges have had some pretty steep declines in enrollment, but they get support from either the state or local governments, or both, that help them keep their doors open through those times," says Johnson. ![]() They don't have large endowments like some competitive private schools, and they don't get taxpayer funding. Nate Johnson, a higher education data analyst, says universities like Stritch are some of the most vulnerable amid the national picture of declining college enrollment. "And if we can’t do that, if our finances aren’t going to let us deliver a quality education, we felt like we couldn’t in good faith keep going forward." "In the end, we felt like we had to maintain Stritch’s quality education," Scholz says. So was it a short-term cash-flow issue that prompted this permanent decision? Scholz says no, "It had been building up for years" with declining enrollment. So it was a question of can we make it to the fall, financially." "In fact all the numbers looked that this next fall numbers were going to be good, in terms of enrollment. "It's not like we had that information for a year and we were under false pretenses enrolling students," Scholz says. Scholz says Stritch didn't mislead students about its financial situation Other universities and colleges have agreed to Teach-Out and transfer agreements with Stritch, but some students won't be able to transfer all their credits. The closure decision has thrown hundreds of Stritch students' education plans up in the air. "We were watching universities across the country who went public with the financial situation they were in, and none of that seemed to a successful tactic - to say, 'Hey we need $6 million just to operate through the end of the term,' - we weren't seeing any success with that sort of option." He says university leadership didn't go public with a plea for help because it didn't seem to be a successful strategy for other universities on the brink of closure, like King's College in New York. Scholz says in the past, the university has partially relied on cash reserves, but those weren't sufficient this time. "It wasn't until maybe six weeks later, late March, early April where we realized we weren't going to make it." "That's not unusual, many institutions our size, if they're facing that, they make those decisions," Scholz says. Scholz says administrators and the board of trustees started going to donors, looking for grants and going to banks for loans, to help fill an about $6 million deficit. if we don't hit our fall enrollments numbers and then the spring semester comes around and we get closer, don't quite hit it, we're going to have a shortage of revenue coming in." "So in early-to-mid February we started realizing we're going to have a significant cash flow issue. "It was with our January financials," Scholz says. Scholz sat down with WUWM for an interview about the decision. President Dan Scholz says the situation became unsustainable this school year. The Franciscan institution has operated at a deficit almost every year in the last decade, according to tax statements. ![]() Stritch’s enrollment has plummeted from about 6,000 students in 2010 to just over 1,000 this year. The news stunned its thousands of alumni and hundreds of current students. In early April, the university north of Milwaukee announced that it would close after this school year. Students will cross the stage at Cardinal Stritch University’s graduation for the last time this Sunday.
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