The urgent calls and emails to Point Park University started within hours of the abrupt announcement that a venerable arts campus in Philadelphia would close within a week, leaving hundreds of students suddenly without fall college plans.

University of the Arts, dating to the 1870s, had become the latest small private campus to succumb to enrollment losses and financial pressures.

The announced closure set for Friday was revealed only a week ago, well after many panicked students had locked in their plans, said Marlin Collingwood, Point Park’s vice president of enrollment management.

“You can’t even understand what these kids are going through,” he told TribLive.

“This one young woman emailed and said, ‘I was at my high school graduation party last night. My phone rang. It was a friend of a friend saying the school has closed. We have nowhere to go in the fall.’ ”

Collingwood said the woman had considered Point Park but settled on University of the Arts. “She had already paid a tuition bill.”

As inquiries poured in, Point Park decided to make those students an unusual offer. If they are willing to in effect “Go West,” Point Park will offer automatic admission and a semester of free campus housing.

Point Park has identified available beds for up to 75 University of the Arts students willing to shift their education plans by driving five hours west to the Downtown Pittsburgh campus.

As of midweek, Point Park had held conversations with 175 students, Collingwood said. His school is among several campuses that have programs similar to University of the Arts and are talking with its students.

Upward of 80% of the approaches to Point Park since Friday involve students seeking last-minute spots in the university’s Conservatory of Performing Arts.

The Conservatory’s dance class of about 115 students is full, but the school plans to create 30 or so slots for new and returning students displaced by the closure. Other parts of the Conservatory still have room, Collingwood said.

Slipping enrollment

Nationwide, the rate of campus closures is generally agreed to be accelerating, but exact numbers can depend on whether both for-profit and nonprofit institutions are included, and how closing a branch campus of a still-open university is counted.

Inside HigherEd identified upward of a dozen four-year nonprofit closures in 2023 of “mostly small, private, tuition-dependent institutions with meager endowments that have seen enrollment slipping for years and have been unable to recover from those sustained losses.”

Among those nonprofit four-year schools was Alderson Broaddus University in Philippi, W.Va. Its enrollment had fallen over the decade from 1,117 students to 670.

Hussian College, a for-profit campus in Philadelphia, and College of Saint Rose in Albany, N.Y., also closed.

This spring, Villanova University outside of Philadelphia acquired the campus of nearby Cabrini University in an agreement that keeps the name, incorporates some aspects of the university and creates the Cabrini Scholars scholarship program.

“We feel confident that our agreement with Villanova will preserve the Cabrini legacy and that our work to educate both minds and hearts will be carried forth,” Cabrini University President Helen Drinan said in announcing the agreement in November. “The Cabrini University impact does not end when our doors close.”

Wells College in Aurora, N.Y., held its last commencement in May.

“It is with profound sadness that we announce the forthcoming closure of our beloved Wells College,” Board Chair Marie Chapman Carroll and President Jonathan Gibralter said in an April 29 message to campus.

Religious-affiliated institutions and for profits have been especially vulnerable, experts say. Collingwood has seen a number of closures involving campuses with an emphasis on visual arts.

In Philadelphia, the University of the Arts was created from two pioneering, century-old institutions, the Philadelphia College of Art (PCA) and the Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts (PCPA). Its performing arts programs date to 1870.

University of the Arts officials said the school had been in a “fragile financial state” along with other institutions of higher learning following “many years of declining enrollments, declining revenues and increasing expenses,” but it had made what it called impressive progress.

Its enrollment stood at 1,313 students in fall 2022, according to the most current federal data.

“We know that the news of UArts’ closure comes as a shock. Like you, we are struggling to make sense of the present moment,” stated a joint message to campus from trustees Chair Judson Aaron and President Kerry Walk, who has since resigned.

The pair added, “The closure means that we will be canceling our summer courses, we will not enroll a new class in the fall, and we will support our continuing students in their progress to degree by developing seamless transfer pathways to our partners: Temple University, Drexel University, and Moore College of Art and Design, among others.”

The offer

Point Park’s automatic acceptance offer is available for fall 2024 and first-year transfer students and includes direct artistic admission into the following nationally-recognized Conservatory of Performing Arts programs: Animation, Cinema Production, Screenwriting, Theatre Arts, and Theatre Production (technical design/management, stage-management, design).

University of the Arts students need not provide a portfolio for these programs “but are still invited to submit samples of their works for additional, merit-based scholarship consideration,” Point Park said in its announcement.

The housing offer includes basic double- and triple-bed housing in Lawrence and Thayer Halls, which would cost $2,680 to $2,940 a semester.

More expensive options like apartments are filled for fall. “At this point, we really just wanted to get them a room,” Collingwood said.

Point Park’s offer is also a reminder that even into June and beyond, hundreds of colleges and universities have fall classroom openings and campus housing and can offer financial incentives to undecided students.

For nearly four decades, the National Association for College Admission Counseling has posted a voluntary list of hundreds of its member institutions that still have some combination of classroom, housing and financial aid available well beyond the traditional May 1 deadline for students to choose a campus.

Among the 19 Pennsylvania institutions listed as of this week were Pittsburgh-area campuses such as Carlow University, Duquesne University, La Roche University and Slippery Rock University.

The list can be found here.

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