Member-only story
Private Religious Universities Are Struggling
The religious right’s own hostility toward higher education is partly to blame.
This week it was announced that Alderson Broaddus University, a private Baptist university in Philippi, West Virginia, was going to be prohibited from granting new degrees, which effectively means that the school is closing. The West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission decided that their debt struggles were just too great to overcome.
Among the other schools closing this year, Alliance University, Bloomfield College, Cardinal Stritch University, Chatfield College, Finlandia University, Holy Names University, Iowa Wesleyan University, and Presentation College are religiously affiliated, and the religiously affiliated Cabrini University and Johnson University Florida will be closing next year. These schools and their secular brethren are listed here. Undoubtedly, more will be announced in the next 6 to 12 months.
In part, the failure of Alderson Broaddus reflects a nationwide enrollment crisis that was exacerbated by the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. In part, it reflects the fact that West Virginia is producing fewer high school graduates because the population is shrinking.
