The College of St. Rose in Albany, New York will close following the Spring semester, the institution announced this month. The university, which currently has more than 2,500 students, attributed the closure to a decline in enrollment and, as a result, a financial deficit that will not sustain the school.
Shortly after the announcement, Misericordia University President Daniel Myers invited the students to check out the school in Dallas, Pennsylvania. Known as ‘President Dan’ on TikTok, he posted a video on the app, offering encouragement to those affected by the news.
“If you are happy at St. Rose, chances are you’ll be happy at Misericordia,” he said in the TikTok video. “We have most of the same academic programs and many of the same athletic programs. We’re a catholic school and we’re about the same size.”
@presdanmyersmu Replying to @Shan #collegeofsaintrose @Misericordia University ♬ original sound - President Dan
The student to faculty ratio is 14:1 at St. Rose and 9.2:1 at Misericordia. Both universities have a student population between 2,000 and 3,000, according to their websites.
Glenn Bozinski is vice president of enrollment management at Misericordia, which is about a three hour drive from Albany.
“Losing the college you attend is a really traumatic thing,” Bozinski said. “We know that it comes as a shock to students, and we wanted to try and say, hey, we're similar enough that you may want to give us a look.”
Patti Ross works with transfer students as the assistant director of admissions, and she says a handful of students have reached out.
“We are talking through what courses they have taken, and how that fits into the programs that they're looking at. And from there, then we invite them to go ahead and do the application,” she said. “Then we do some evaluation of those transfer credits and provide them a solid idea of what course is transferring, and how long it will take to then complete the program that they are interested in.”
The faculty is finding that some programs translate easily. Ross says she is recommending people wait to send their transcripts until after the fall semester.
“At this moment, they're getting this information trying to wrap up their semester, trying to wrap their head around what is happening,” she said. “I think it's going to take them a little bit of time to try to figure out what they want to do next, what they can do next. And, you know, maybe taking the holidays to let it all sink in before they start to really search for those answers.”
In the meantime, Ross says she is there for students to help them through the process.
College enrollment rates have decreased nearly 10% since 2010, according to the Education Data Initiative.
“It's certainly something we talk about every day. Unfortunately, there are a lot of challenges in the higher ed landscape, especially for small to midsize private institutions like ourselves in the Northeast," Bozinski said of the trend. "There are fewer students, families are having fewer students, high schools are graduating fewer students.”
Despite this, enrollment numbers have remained steady since 2021, and Misericordia anticipates an increase next fall.
“We've really had a focus in the past several years on how we can remain strong. We just brought in our largest first year class and four years since the pandemic,” he said. “And we've added some things both in academic programs like business economics, and new athletic programs like wrestling, stunt and ice hockey coming this year… trying to find things that attract students, not only academically but socially and culturally.”
