Two small Christian colleges announced this month that they will permanently close at the end of the 2025-26 academic year, the latest casualties in a wave of financial distress hitting small private institutions across the country.
Together, the closures underscore the precarious financial position facing many small, faith-based institutions that have struggled to attract enough students to sustain operations.
Lourdes, located in Lucas County outside Toledo, enrolled 655 graduate and undergraduate students at the time of its announcement and employed 136 full- and part-time faculty and staff. Providence enrolled just 168 students last fall, according to federal data, and carried an endowment of only $25,322 while operating at a nearly $1 million loss in fiscal year 2024.
"The challenges of ongoing low enrollment coupled with the high expense of operating a college in Southern California were insurmountable factors," Providence President Steven B. Kortenhoeven said in a statement posted to the college's website.
At Lourdes, the announcement was shared with faculty and staff during a campus meeting on Feb. 11. A town hall with students was scheduled for the following evening, and a virtual meeting with parents was planned for the following week. On the heels of the closure announcement, President William J. Bisset stepped down and was replaced by Dr. Nancy Linenkugel, one of the Sisters of St. Francis who oversee the institution. Linenkugel, who becomes the university's 13th and final president, said her immediate priority is supporting students, faculty, and staff through the transition.
"Right now, our immediate priority is supporting students, faculty and staff through this transition, and ensuring they are able to complete their academic pathways with clarity, dignity and care," Linenkugel said.
Providence's closure carries additional dimensions tied to federal higher education policy. The college had received a $3 million grant distributed in $600,000 annual installments after the U.S. Department of Education recognized it as a Hispanic-Serving Institution in 2023. The Trump administration halted such grants in 2025, deeming them unconstitutional. Nearly half of Providence's student body is Hispanic or Latino, according to federal enrollment data. The college's regional accreditor, the WASC Senior College and University Commission, had also placed the institution on probation, adding pressure that Kortenhoeven said contributed to the board's decision.
Both institutions said they will continue to operate fully through the end of the academic year. Providence has established teach-out agreements with Biola University, Concordia University, and The Master's University to allow students who have not yet completed their degrees to transfer and finish on a similar timeline and at comparable cost. Lourdes officials said teach-out details were still being finalized, with Linenkugel saying the university planned to update students, parents, and faculty "in the coming weeks."
Providence was founded in 2002 and enrolled its first class in 2005, spending two decades building what its founders envisioned as a confessionally Reformed Christian college on the West Coast. The institution has been housed since 2018 in a Gothic Revival church building in Old Pasadena designated as a landmark by the City of Pasadena's Historic Preservation Commission.
The two closures are the first announced in 2026. California College of the Arts announced last month that it would shut down and sell its campus to Vanderbilt University.
