MacMurray College Closing at End of Semester

[TexasTowelie]

MacMurray College, a 174-year-old liberal arts institution in Jacksonville, Ill., will close at the end of the spring semester, the college announced Friday.

The small private college’s board decided it had no viable financial path for the future. Leaders cited declining enrollment, rising costs and an endowment they called insufficient.

MacMurray’s board attempted to find new sources of capital and to explore financial scenarios for more than a year. The college had also been laying plans to build professional degree programs and educate more nontraditional students.

“However, despite our best efforts, we were unable to secure the capital to fund a viable path forward,” the board’s chair, Charles O’Connell, said in a statement. “We deeply regret this decision and are sorry for the disruption and disappointment it will have for everyone in the Mac Family.”

Read more: https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/03/28/macmurray-college-closing-end-semester

[frazzled]

1. But not really related to corona virus

This very small college (c. 570 students) had been in trouble for some time:

The coronavirus outbreak and resulting economic disruption “complicated MacMurray’s financial condition” but were not primary reasons for the closure, according to a statement.

MacMurray's leadership team worked to develop a sustainable financial model for more than a year. The model would have included expanding the college's professional degree programs and working to admit more nontraditional students.
...

"The Board pursued and prepared several different scenarios for more than a year, including merger with another college, financial remedies, development of a strategic plan to reshape MacMurray’s business and academic model, and closure," she wrote in an email. "After that extensive process, it became clear MacMurray could not secure the capital needed to keep the college open and had no viable financial path forward."

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/02/two-small-colleges-winding-down-operations-coronavirus-impact-looms-over-higher-ed

MacMurray has struggled financially in recent years, having failed the U.S. Department of Education's annual financial responsibility test in 2011, 2012, and 2013, and in 2016 was placed on probation for a two-year period by its accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission, which cited "concerns related to governance, assessment of student learning, institutional resources, planning, and performance improvement.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacMurray_College