Northland College Announces Closure Following School Year

Northland College will officially close at the end of the 2024-2025 school year amid failure to solve budget issues and declining enrollment.

The school’s Board of Trustees unanimously voted to close the school on Wednesday. The move comes nearly one year after the college cut staff and academic offerings in an attempt to remain financially viable. Last spring, the decision on whether to close the college or not saw months of delays and fundraising efforts.

Northland College officials declared financial exigency in March and announced that they needed to raise about $12 million in one month to remain open. They also said the school was forced to dip into its $25 million endowment to remain operational, and the fund had been completely depleted.

By their initial chosen deadline, the Ashland school raised less than $2 million. Last minute donations in May and a new academic structure gave officials hope the school could remain open.

Now, the Board of Trustees says the college has no sustainable path forward financially. They cited continued declining enrollment and growing costs as the main factors in the decision to close for good.

In a statement, Chair of the Northland College Board of Trustees Ted Bristol said “Despite the collaborative efforts of the entire Northland family, we no longer have the resources needed to navigate the economic and demographic storms endangering small, liberal arts institutions today. With declining enrollment and soaring costs, it takes more to operate the College than we raise in tuition.”

Northland College has operated in the region since 1892.