CLAYTON, Mo. — Fontbonne University will be closing after the 2025 summer session. Over the past century, 20,000 students graduated from the school. Washington University has made an agreement to purchase the 16-acre campus in the next month or two. The university is planning on holding a press conference Monday at 3 p.m.
After many years of declining enrollments and a shrinking endowment, the school’s board of trustees voted to cease operations. The school will not be admitting freshmen in the fall of 2024 but there will be classes through 2025. All undergraduate students will get scholarships to cover tuition for the summers of 2024 and 2025.
The school says that this will help as many current students as possible to complete their degrees and graduate. Staff and faculty will remain employed until the university closes.
In November, Fontbonne University announced significant changes due to nearly $2 million in budget cuts, resulting in the loss of 21 academic programs and 19 faculty positions.
“This difficult decision was not made lightly. Despite the best efforts of faculty, staff, administration and our faithful supporters, we have faced challenges, including more than 15 years of enrollment decline heading into the enrollment cliff, the impact of COVID, and many other financial struggles impacting small, private institutions like ours across the nation,” Dr. Nancy Blattner, Fontbonne University President, told students earlier Monday.
Support is being provided to assist students in either graduating from Fontbonne or transferring to another institution to finish their college education. For those who cannot or do not wish to complete their degrees at Fontbonne, there are options to complete their degrees at other universities through teach-out agreements that are currently being finalized.