In this special episode of the "This Week in College Viability" podcast, host Gary Stocker interviews John Nichols, author of Requiem for a College and former faculty member at the now‑closed St. Joseph’s College, to discuss the recent December announcement that the private College of St. Rose in Albany, NY is shutting down. The conversation moves from heartfelt condolences and practical coping advice for displaced students, faculty, and staff, to a detailed look at the financial warning signs that preceded the closure – a roughly 1,000‑student enrollment drop, a $25 million loss in tuition/fee revenue, a modest endowment, and aggressive tuition discounting. Nichols explains how faculty may have a slightly better hiring outlook because the closure was announced earlier than at St. Joseph’s, and describes the likely emotions and agenda of the all‑hands meeting (grief, teach‑out planning, severance negotiations, and the role of the New York Attorney General in releasing endowment funds). Stocker and Nichols critique the broader higher‑education landscape, noting that many small private colleges are “giving away the store” to maintain cash flow, and they urge prospective students and parents to use the College Viability app to scrutinize enrollment trends, graduation rates, endowment size, and discount rates before enrollment decisions. The episode also revisits Nichols’s 2022 book, summarizing its two‑part structure (personal memoir of a college closure and an analytical post‑mortem) and confirming that the pattern of closures is expected to continue, with mergers as a likely mitigation strategy. Throughout, the hosts stress compassion, transparency, and proactive financial awareness as essential tools for navigating institutional instability.
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Welcome back to a special episode of This Week in College Viability, and I'm doing something special today. If the old ABC television Nightline program could do it with specials all the time, so can Gary Stocker and John Nichols. So welcome to our first This Week in College Viability special, the closing of a college. In this case, it's the College of St. Rose in Albany, New York, and that news hit the wires yesterday. John Nichols, welcome back. John, you have lived what the students and faculty and staff at the College of Saint Rose are going through today. What's your first piece of advice to them?
Thank you for having me, Gary. First of all, I want to give my deepest condolences to the people of College of Saint Rose. It is an awful thing that has happened, and as you mentioned, I detail a similar experience in my book, Requiem for a College, I would also just quickly make the point that when social media is involved, sometimes we get comments in these situations where people do a kind of like a victory lap or cheer on a closing. I would ask, please, that we keep in mind there are 600 employees who have just lost their jobs or will lose their jobs. There are all of these students who have to figure out a new way forward. If so, whatever someone might think of higher education, I would ask, please, let's treat people with compassion and dignity. But my advice is, um, there's nothing I can say really that will help make this situation any better. The only thing that will help will be time. It just is going to take time, and it's going to mean, as I was told with expert help after it happened to me, it's just putting one foot in front of the other every single day. Keep moving. It will get better. It is a cliché, but one door closes, new one opens. It's just going to be hell in the hallway for a while while you're trying to get to that next opportunity and a time when the world feels right again.
And I remember in your 2022 book, Requiem for college, you detailed in great depth and with great passion and conviction that the trauma and challenges, and it can't be an easy day in Albany, New York today, but based on what you have lived back when St. Joseph's closed back in 2017, what kind of hope? I mean, you just mentioned one foot forward, but you and many of your faculty colleagues and staff colleagues and students survived What kind of guidance can you provide to that same group of folks at the College of Saint Rose?
For the faculty, their situation— this is cold comfort, I realize, what I'm going to say— but they're in a slightly better situation than we were, as I detailed in Requiem, finding out that the closure, or the closure rather, was announced in February. Now, with it being announced in December, the faculty have a chance at applying in, in the cycle, better area in the cycle for new jobs, new, new professorships elsewhere. When I've been on hiring committees, usually what we've done is we say, okay, we'll get our resumes in, we'll circle back after the holidays, and then we'll take a look at our applications and see about interviews. So that they're in a little bit better place. As far as anything else, I hope is I hope that I can serve as an example that it can get better, that I did make it through. Others I know did make it through. Students made it through, and many of them doing quite well right now. So it is possible. Maybe that's the best comfort I can give at this time. It is possible to come out the other side of this. And the world will, um, feel better again to you. Right now it doesn't, and it's okay to accept the fact that something terrible has happened and just, you know, realize there are other people out there who feel for you. You're not alone, and that we recognize it too. This is something terrible.
And then I recall, and you know, I have the College Viability app that I know you have and have used. And the data from iPads and the College Viability app shows that enrollment was down at the College of St. Rose 1,000 or so students, tuition and fee revenue was down $25 million, and the college had a really small endowment. And you did a good job in Requiem describing in retrospect that you should have known better, both as individuals and faculty, that the college was in trouble. Should the faculty and staff at the College of St. Rose seen this coming?
Well, I think that's what's interesting, Gary, is that what I have seen, and I have not studied their financial situation in detail, I know only what your app has shown and what has been printed in the Times Union in Albany and also a few television stations covering the story that are local there. I think a few of them did. There were a few students who expressed in, on the television interview that they, there were grumblings and a couple of the students felt optimistic and realized they have opportunities. There was recently, within recent years, the college had furloughed many different professors and they had cut programs, majors. They had, laid off a few admin. So there were grumblings. I think they had a better idea of what was coming possibly than we did at St. Joseph's College. Certainly the number of people who were truly aware of what was going on for us were fewer than the folks, it sounds like to me anyway, at College of St. Rose. So, It's hard to say. I think that more people, from my first blush indication, more people at St. Rose realized it than St. Joe did.
Interesting. And probably about now, there's a meeting taking place on campus at the College of St. Rose. It was announced in those media sources that you referenced. And again, going back to the Requiem book, You sat in those meetings and you chronicled your reaction, you chronicled the reaction of your colleagues. Based on what you went through, what do you think is happening at that all-hands meeting at the College of Saint Rose? What are the emotions, the reactions, maybe even the comments that are being thrown out by the faculty and staff and maybe even students at Saint Rose?
Well, it depends on the individual, of course, and the situation is, like I said, there probably was at least a a modicum of awareness that this closure could be a possibility. So, but regardless, regardless of seeing it coming, that doesn't necessarily make it any easier. So there's a lot of heartbreak going on right now. There's a lot of sadness. This is, this is a death. That's why I kept hearing when I interviewed folks who have gone through this at other institutions, death, and there's everything that comes with it. There's a whole grieving process. But right now in that meeting, the immediate concern is going to be how to help these students. The, the college is required to have a teach-out program to get students transferred to new programs and new locations. So that is, that's going to be paramount. To get their, their customer, their clientele taken care of, this will probably be a— to use a crude metaphor— a time when the vultures start circling. There'll be other area colleges and universities who will see an opportunity to make their enrollments grow and to absorb new students. So this will be especially likely for programs, I believe, Saint Rose specializes very much in education and nursing, so teachers and nurses and folks like that, there will be opportunities not only for students to go to other institutions, but possibly faculty in those disciplines to go elsewhere as well. Faculty in these meetings are gonna want to know about severance, and severance will likely depend upon tenure status. There is a faculty union, if I'm not mistaken, at the college, as well as an adjunct Faculty Union. They will be active in protecting the interests of their membership and making sure they get the best possible severance that can be made. Something that's going to have to happen is for the New York State Attorney General to approve a payout of the endowment. At least that's what happened in St. Joe's College in Indiana. We had to wait on approval for that because of the fact that donors who gave to the college and that money went into the endowment, that was not earmarked for paying anybody's salary. That was for, you know, new facilities and things that were going to improve the institution itself. So there's a legal barrier that has to be lifted first. So, and also tangled in with all this is the intangible aspect that it's December 1st. There's no good time for this to happen, but holiday season, and it just makes it even more sad. It's going to be weighing heavy on people when it's normally a time of joy and family, but maybe it's that same family that's going to help everybody get through this awful time.
And you mentioned the vultures, and I've had other folks in higher education, you know, teasingly call these colleges seeking, in this case, the College of St. Rose students and college ambulance chasers. And I only bring that up, it's almost like a comment, John, not a question, because it's kind of indicative of how far higher education has fallen that people would even think to call colleges vultures or ambulance chasers, just desperate to find students to provide tuition revenue to stay afloat. And it's just, it bothers me that we've stooped to that. Um, but again, that's more of a comment than a question. And I know—
I agree—
I know from experience that, that there are other college students, faculty, and staff, community leaders that will listen to this podcast. They'll listen to the special college closure podcast with concerns about the viability and future of their colleges. You and I both know that intellectually and in reality is happening. What advice would you give those, particularly faculty and staff, when they really, they've got that bad feeling in their belly?
And this is the question I've been trying to figure out a good answer for, and I admit it's difficult. Here's how I would start out. First of all, your app is very useful at peeking under the hood and looking at the finances of many, many different institutions. There should at the same time be a demand from the administrations at these institutions for financial transparency, to say, to be able to see exactly where money is going, what kind of debt there is. And as we talked about before, what kind of tuition discount is there? In looking at College of St. Rose, Um, there was a period there, according to the Times Union anyway, where there was a boom in enrollment and then they were spending $100 million on new facilities, but then enrollment dropped. They had, uh, start talking about these shortages and budget. Well, what happened to cause that enrollment? I don't know, but I would want to know what kind of tuition discount was being offered for these new enrollees. That's something that especially private small colleges need to be asking, because if your tuition is your sole source of revenue, then you can't be giving it away for almost free. At St. Joseph's College, our average discount rate was somewhere around 65%. So, yeah, I don't know what, if any, there was at College of St. Rose, but I— that's my big question looking at trajectory that was described in the news.
For— I'll be doing a more thorough report on St. Rose in my regular This Week in College Viability podcast on Monday. And I've got their data. I think I shared that with you. They are— they were increasingly giving away the store to get students to enroll. And it's not unique, you know. No, I look at this data all the time. And way, way, way too many colleges, John, are giving away the store just to keep the lights on and just to meet payroll.
Yeah, that's absolutely true. And it's obviously not a viable economic model, to say the least. To say the least. Unless somehow you are backed by another form of funding, grants or donors. I don't know, a scholarship fund, foundation. But One interesting aspect that I wanted to bring up that was in the Times Union, that as we see more of these are happening, as you just asked me what kind of advice I have for people who are institutions that are afraid right now, one point of data that the article had was that when this happens, when the closure happens, less than a third of students immediately go on to continue their education. So that of course means that there is a number in there that just don't go on and they do something else, I, I imagine. So when it— this sort of thing happens, there's a loss. That's the kind of loss we maybe aren't paying attention to, is that we we aren't getting the fully educated society that we would like to have and that opportunities or willingness sort of dries up after this kind of experience happens, which I can understand. It's a very, very tough thing to go through. So that needs to be addressed as well, I think.
Yeah. There were something like 1,000 students, undergrads, I think at St. Joe's. Yes. And you use the numbers, and I think what you have is right. So 600-ish are going to walk away from a higher education. That's sad in and of itself in this case. But if you're a parent, if you're a new college student or a future college student, that's one of the reasons I created the College Viability app and all the research and reporting that I do on that. Please, please, please look at the finances.
Yes.
Look at the enrollment pattern. Look at the 4- and 6-year graduation rates. Really think hard before you choose a college where the enrollment is consistently trending downward, where the tuition fees are lower. And we show all this stuff in the College Viability app. When the endowment is below $50 million, when the graduation rates are pathetic— and John, you and I have talked about this— below 50% for 4 years, below 70% for 6 years. Please, yes, not have to put your child through this. Consider looking at the financial health Private colleges in particular. I would just do a quick editorial. Public colleges aren't going to close, period. If they do, it'll be far and far between. But already we see across the country many, many public colleges, many of renown, are cutting back on programs, on majors, on faculty and staff. So even if you're looking at a major public college, ask about the major. Ask them to share with you the enrollment for the major, your major, or majors you're considering for yourself. Yes, because if those majors have had decreasing enrollment, be really careful because that kind of enrollment will make a public college think about canceling that program. And I know most of the time they'll say students who started can finish. Great, right? Actually come to fruition. And then finally, John, you know, I have shared with many, many, many folks that your 2022 book, Requiem for College, is a story that is happening again and again already and will continue to happen, mostly to private colleges. And if you would just briefly tell our listeners about the book and then answer, could you have envisioned that the story of John Nichols and St. Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana could happen? Over and over again in this country?
Yes, I'd be happy to. The book is a something of two halves. One, the first half is somewhat memoir-ish where I describe what it was like to live through a college closing. It's something of a unique story in higher education in that I was a graduate of the institution. My father taught at the institution and my brother was a graduate as well. My brother and I then came back to teach at the institution. So it was something of a family business that my entire family had an investment in. The second half is my, uh, as objective as I could possibly be, look at taking apart the fragments from the plane crash, so to speak, and figure out what caused it. There's a lot of anger. Now imagine there's anger going on at St. Rose. It's natural. That why somebody couldn't have done something to stop this. Well, in my research, I came to find out that yes, it should have been addressed, it should have been noticed. But by 2017, when the closure was announced, it was far too late. And there's no one person, no one factor that caused it. It was a combination of multiple, multiple factors that are hitting small colleges all over the country right now. Could I have envisioned that it would continue? Oh yes. And I say that because when I did my research, we were not— we were far from the first. There were many small college closures that happened in the decade from 2000 to 2010, others after that. And I started to keep track after St. Joseph's College closed of all the closures that happened. I ended up giving up. There were just so many and it was hard to keep a database of them. So this, I wish it wasn't going to be so, but it's going to continue in one form or another. At the very least, there will be mergers where smaller institutions will merge with larger, more financially viable ones to become stable and save jobs and save their students, but there's going to be a little bit of loss of identity. That happens with any kind of merger in whether it be the business world or education. So I wish it wasn't true, but it's going to continue. So yes, I completely envisioned this happening after I had finished my book and my research.
Yeah. Well, John Nichols, always, always a pleasure. Your insight and what you lived through, no fun, but I I do believe— excuse me— I sincerely believe it provides value to others. So we'll continue to stay in touch. And again, this is the first special episode of This Week in College Viability, the closing of a college. This case, it's the College of St. Rose in Albany, New York. And again, Jonathan Nichols has been our guest, author of the 2022 book Requiem for a College. John, best wishes for you and your family for the holidays, and we'll stay in touch.
