Financially strapped Rosemont College will merge with Villanova University

The financially struggling Rosemont College has struck a definitive agreement to merge into neighboring Villanova University, beginning in 2027 and becoming final in 2028, officials from the Catholic schools said Monday.

While both schools have vowed to honor the legacy and history of the more than century-old Rosemont and tenure and tenure-track faculty will be offered contracts to teach at Villanova, the agreement means that the Philadelphia region eventually will be losing its second Catholic college in a short time frame.

Cabrini University in Radnor closed its doors for good last May, and Villanova also purchased that campus.

Within three years, Rosemont with the neo-Gothic architecture and leafy campus on the Main Line, less than a mile away from Villanova, will become known as Villanova University, Rosemont Campus.

» READ MORE: FINANCIALLY FRAGILE: The Inquirer examined the financial health of 13 small, private Philadelphia-area universities

The move comes as many colleges are being challenged by demographic trends, a loss of public confidence in higher education, and — more recently — scrutiny by the federal government.

Rosemont, with an enrollment of 774 students, was one of 13 colleges The Inquirer examined last fall and found it was in poor financial health, using an index developed by a finance executive at a small college in Illinois.

A merger between Rosemont and Villanova has been talked about for decades — students from both have long taken classes on each other’s campus and participated in programs — but only over the last year began to come to fruition as Rosemont was facing mounting debt and looking for a merger partner.

“We are committed to securing the best possible options for our students, faculty, and staff and believe this merger with Villanova offers the best opportunity to ensure that the Rosemont College history and legacy endures,” Rosemont President Jim Cawley said.

» READ MORE: Rosemont College welcomes first coed classes

Rosemont announced the decision to faculty, staff, and students during a meeting at 12:30 p.m.

“This was probably the best that Jim Cawley could have done,” said Frank Klose, an associate professor and discipline coordinator of the communication department and the theology and religious department. “Something had to happen, either a large infusion of cash or something strategic. I’m grateful that they were proactive compared to reactive.”

But Klose, who serves as the softball team chaplain, said he is concerned for his athletes, who may look to transfer to another school. The NCAA Division III college is ending intercollegiate sports after the 2026 season and moving to club sports. The college plans to identify Division III colleges that will allow for athletes to transfer.

“Their future plans are very tied to softball, and this will be a major disruption,” he said.

Villanova athletes compete in Division I except for football, which is part of the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly known as Division I-AA).

Klose said he intends to remain at Rosemont for the students “who are going to need our support now.”

The multiyear transition will begin in 2027, and students currently enrolled will have until June 2028 to complete their Rosemont degrees. The college will continue to operate independently during that time, with most of its extracurricular activities intact.

Rosemont will receive financial support from Villanova as needed through 2028, said Maria Feeley, Rosemont’s board chair. After that, students will have the option to transfer to Villanova’s School of Professional Studies to complete a degree.

Asked whether that timeline could accelerate if Rosemont students choose to transfer out, both Cawley and Feeley said they expected that students would want to stay and finish their degrees. Key to their negotiations with Villanova was giving students the path to do that, they said, noting statistics that show many students drop out when a college closes.

Tori Jones, a freshman English and communications major from South Carolina, said she intends to stay. Financial aid is her main concern, she said, and students were told that would not change.

“A lot of people are very anxious,” said Jones, who attended the campus meeting where the change was announced. “With the information I’ve been given, I’m OK.”

Freshman Lucia Madron, who recently became student government president, said she also will remain and is grateful that students have that option, rather than being forced to transfer.

“I will still be graduating from Rosemont,” said the philosophy major from Kennett Square.

But the announcement has made her question all her efforts to drive change at the school. She also leads four clubs.

“We already have a problem with student engagement. How is that going to look next year,” she asked. “Will people think it still matters?”

Her mother, Gina Madron, a Rosemont alumna, said she was sad but still trying to absorb what the announcement means.

“They can’t take away my memories,” she said.

Rosemont, which has rolling admissions, will stop accepting new students in October, said Feeley, a lawyer, who serves as chief legal officer for Washington and Lee University, in Lexington, Va..

» READ MORE: Rosemont College slashes sticker price; savings vary

Three Rosemont board members, including Feeley, will join Villanova’s board, she said.

“We have been considering other partnerships for several years, but it became clear that Villanova would be our best partner because we do have a shared history, community values, traditions,” she said, adding that a lot of families have degrees from both institutions.

Under the agreement, tenured faculty in 2028 will be offered five-year contracts to teach at Villanova with at least a 10% wage increase and the option to apply for tenure after that, she said. Faculty on the tenure track but not yet tenured will get three-year contracts with the same option. The college had 24 full-time faculty members as of the fall.

It also employed 68 full-time staff, as well as 175 adjunct professors, 18 part-time coaches, and five part-time staff in the fall.

» READ MORE: Rosemont College’s accreditation has been reaffirmed after last year’s warning

The announcement comes less than a year after Villanova completed the purchase of the Cabrini campus. Cabrini graduated its last class of students in May.

Rosemont will become the seventh local college slated to be merged into another or closed since 2017, when Philadelphia University merged into Thomas Jefferson University. Others include the University of the Sciences, which was merged into St. Joseph’s University in 2022; University of the Arts, which abruptly closed last June; Salus University, which merged into Drexel University last year; and Peirce College, which is scheduled to be merged into Lackawanna College.

Villanova did not detail its plans for the Rosemont campus, other than to say it will continue its academic and residential uses. The university recently announced its plans for the Cabrini campus: academics, including psychology, education, and counseling and ethics; student housing, primarily for sophomores; and student recreational space. The campus is currently closed and undergoing renovations.

The Rev. Peter M. Donohue, Villanova’s president, said in a message to the campus community that the decision to merge with Rosemont, along with its previous acquisition of Cabrini, “represents long-term strategic planning for Villanova.

“The demand for a Villanova education has never been greater. With this agreement, we seek to enhance our university programs and complement the goals we developed together in our Strategic Plan…”

The university received 26,135 applications for 1,750 spots — a record — during its most recent admissions cycle.

» READ MORE: At Cabrini University, there will be no next year: A chronicling of its final semester

Villanova and Rosemont have different profiles. Villanova is a highly selective college, accepting about a quarter of applicants, while Rosemont admits more than three-quarters. Villanova ranks 58th among national universities in U.S. News and World Report, while Rosemont is between 151 and 165 in regional universities.

Villanova’s price tag is substantially higher than Rosemont’s, with its tuition and fees topping $67,000, compared to Rosemont at $23,700. And Villanova, which recently launched a $1.2 billion capital campaign, is much bigger, enrolling nearly 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students, compared to fewer than 1,000 at Rosemont. Villanova has 800 full-time faculty positions, compared to Rosemont’s 24.

Neither college released the financial terms of the agreement, which is subject to approval by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

» READ MORE: Villanova’s $75M renovation of Cabrini campus will allow the biggest enrollment increase in decades

Feeley said Villanova will be providing financial assistance to Rosemont over the next three years so that it can continue to operate, but did not say how much.

“In a nutshell Villanova has agreed to support us through 2028 if we have the need for funding, which we will, because we’re tuition dependent and we stop enrolling students in October,” Feeley said.

Officials from both colleges said Rosemont’s legacy of its founders, the Sisters of the Holy Child Jesus, and heritage will be preserved.

Neither Cawley or Feeley would comment on Rosemont’s current financial situation or its most recent audited statement for fiscal 2024, which has not yet been posted.

Rosemont has reported operating losses for five straight years through June 2023 and since 2020 has borrowed millions from its restricted endowment to meet operating expenses.

In The Inquirer’s analysis last fall, Rosemont had the smallest endowment at $16 million of the 13 schools examined and the oldest average age of facilities, which at times affected finances.

Founded in 1921 as a women’s college, Rosemont’s struggles have been longstanding. In 2009, the year it became coed, the school had a $1 million deficit in its then-$20 million budget.

In 2015, the college reset its tuition, a tactic in which colleges lower the sticker price to attract more families but simultaneously reduce financial aid. (Ultimately, Cawley, who became president in 2022, said the move hadn’t had sustained success and the college went back into discounting.)

As its financial challenges grew, Rosemont started borrowing restricted funds from its endowment to cover “immediate operational needs.” There was a $3 million loan in 2020, when the endowment was worth $17 million, followed by a $2 million loan in 2023. Finally, last April, Rosemont borrowed another $2 million from its endowment to help pay off a $3 million line of credit.

Shortly after Cawley arrived, Middle States warned that the college’s accreditation “may be in jeopardy” because it did not appear to be meeting requirements around planning, budget, and academic assessment. Colleges need accreditation to keep their students eligible for state and financial aid.

A year later, the accrediting body reaffirmed Rosemont’s accreditation through 2028-29.

Both Cawley and Feeley acknowledged that Rosemont had been having conversations with other colleges, but could not reveal which ones because of non-disclosure agreements. Officials from Alvernia College in Reading made a visit to Rosemont last year.

But Cawley last fall was upbeat about Rosemont’s future, saying he had brought in a new team to oversee enrollment and finances and developed a strategic plan that included expanding student recruiting into North Jersey, Maryland, and the Washington, D.C., suburbs.

Villanova will inherit a campus with some beautiful, relatively new buildings, including Rosemont’s community center, named after former president Sharon Latchaw Hirsh. Its main building is on the National Register of Historic Places. Many of its structures were built by John McShain, the same contractor who was responsible for the Pentagon and the Jefferson Memorial.

Staff writer Harold Brubaker contributed to this report.