Nashville's Vanderbilt University will acquire CCA's expanded San Francisco campus and its former Oakland properties, operating the San Francisco location as a satellite campus for approximately 1,000 students, including art and design programs.
"This was not a decision we reached lightly, and we expect there may be feelings of shock, frustration and disappointment," CCA President David Howse wrote in a message posted on the college's website. "After nearly two years of working to resolve the college's underlying financial challenges, we know this is the necessary step to take."
The closure follows years of mounting financial pressures, including a $20 million deficit and enrollment that plummeted by one-third from its 2019 peak of around 1,800 full-time students. Last fall, just 207 undergraduate and 117 graduate students began their studies at CCA.
The announcement leaves the Bay Area without a private art and design school, though several major universities in the region—including UC Berkeley, Stanford and San Francisco State—offer fine arts programs.
Students on track to graduate by the end of the 2026-27 academic year—numbering 484, according to local reports—will be able to complete their degrees. CCA officials said they are working with accredited institutions to establish transfer pathways for students whose coursework extends beyond spring 2027.
The college's contemporary art center, the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, will continue operating as part of a "CCA Institute at Vanderbilt," which will also maintain the college's archives and engage with its alumni network. Notable CCA graduates include contemporary artists Jules de Balincourt, Toyin Ojih Odutola and Hank Willis Thomas.
Before the 2024-25 academic year began, Howse warned faculty and staff about the institution's financial crisis. The college had just completed a $97.5 million renovation of its San Francisco campus while consolidating operations from its historic Oakland location, which it occupied from 1922 to 2022.
Emergency funding—including a $20 million state grant, trustee contributions and private donations—provided temporary relief but proved insufficient for long-term sustainability.
"Yes, it is true that with the generous help of trustees, a group of important private donors and a grant of $20 million from the state of California, we were able to avoid a financial crisis and earn time to plan more effectively for the future," Howse wrote. "But these measures have proven to be temporary and not sustainable if we are to serve our community effectively."
CCA's closure follows the 2022 shuttering of another venerable Bay Area institution, the San Francisco Art Institute, which faced similar enrollment and financial problems. That school filed for bankruptcy in 2023 and was acquired by Laurene Powell Jobs's nonprofit in 2024, with plans to reopen as an unaccredited art school.
