CLAYTON — Leaders of Fontbonne University are weighing deep cuts to academic programs and staffing levels amid staggering enrollment declines and financial woes.
The private Catholic institution has experienced a 60% loss in enrollment and a more than $14 million decline in revenue over the past decade, according to tax records. Fontbonne is also facing a deficit of $5.2 million in the 2024 budget — prompting officials to consider eliminating more than 20 degree programs and laying off 18 faculty members.
“Fontbonne University is committed to prioritizing our fiscal health to provide the best experience for students and faculty. Like many post-secondary institutions, Fontbonne is navigating shifting economic and financial circumstances,” said Quinton Clay, vice president for enrollment management, marketing and communications, in a statement Wednesday.
People are also reading…
The proposed cuts include undergraduate degree programs in actuarial science, art, deaf education, game development, global studies, health care management and religious studies, as first reported by .
Just 874 students including 650 undergraduates are enrolled at Fontbonne this fall, down from roughly 2,000 students a decade ago.
The higher education landscape has become a land mine for university leaders to navigate: There are fewer college-aged students, and a smaller percentage are going to college. That demographic cliff has heightened competition among universities and widened the gulf between small, struggling colleges and major established universities. Webster University experienced a 50% drop in enrollment and a loss of $128 million over the past decade. Its longtime leader, Chancellor Beth Stroble, announced her resignation last month after the Post-Dispatch reported that Webster’s board of trustees had given her and its president big pay raises despite the financial turmoil.
“This is a national story, we just have the symptoms here in Ƶ,” said Gary Stocker of , which tracks colleges’ financial health. “I will grant them that the industry is tough, but Fontbonne cannot reasonably expect long-term viability.”
Fontbonne was founded 100 years ago as private women’s college by the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Carondelet in south Ƶ. It later moved to its current location at Wydown and Big Bend boulevards and accepted its first male students in the 1960s. It became renowned as a global leader in deaf education.
But starting more than a decade ago, Fontbonne struggled to attract students, and enrollment began to slide. Landlocked in Clayton — its neighbor is Washington University — Fontbonne in 2017 looked to add a second campus in west Ƶ County at the shuttered John F. Kennedy Catholic High School.
“We want to be a stronger player in this space,” then-President Michael Pressimone told the Post-Dispatch at the time. “I’m not afraid of competition.”
The second campus was scheduled to open in July 2018, but Fontbonne instead laid off 27 employees, or 10% of its total workforce. The university later sold the West County campus to McBride Homes, which demolished the former high school for a new subdivision.
Pressimone stepped down in 2020, and Nancy Blattner, a former Fontbonne vice president, was hired from Caldwell University in New Jersey. Blattner earned $284,151 in the 2021-22 school year, according to the latest figures available from the university’s tax records.
Fontbonne looked to new degree programs to attract students. The Higher Learning Commission, a school accreditation body, over the past year approved Fontbonne’s request to offer a master’s program in biology and a bachelor’s in criminal justice. HLC also approved Fontbonne’s contract with Mercy Health to offer a bachelor’s degree in medical laboratory sciences.
It’s unclear whether those programs will be affected by the proposed cuts.
Fontbonne was once a beacon for international students, who tend to pay full tuition, which is $28,276 for 2023-24. The university has eight new and around 30 total international students this year, far short of its former goal of 10% of enrollment.
The enrollment decline has persisted even after the university lowered its admission standards in recent years. Fontbonne is one of just 86 colleges nationwide — and the only one in Missouri — that has eliminated standardized test scores for admission altogether.
Anyone with a 3.0 GPA in high school is automatically admitted. Students with a GPA of 2.0 to 2.9 are “holistically reviewed,” according to Fontbonne’s website.
“If you do not meet these requirements, please contact our staff. We want to get to know you and help support your success in college,” the website reads.
The College Viability app shows Fontbonne’s endowment dropped from $18.9 million in 2014 to $15.3 million in 2021, “strongly suggesting that Fontbonne has been using their endowment just to keep the lights on, just to meet payroll,” Stocker said.
The university’s leaders “should be fair to the students and to their faculty, to their staff and to their community and say it’s time to find other college and career opportunities,” Stocker said.
Edited to add updated international student figures.