Dive Brief:
- Delaware College of Art and Design plans to wind down operations and will stop accepting new students after 27 years of existence, the institution said.
- Starting with the 2024-25 academic year, the college will no longer offer classes or confer degrees. It has teach-out agreements with Pennsylvania College of Art and Design and Moore College of Art and Design, also in Pennsylvania, to accept both its incoming and current students.
- In announcing the closure, DCAD President Jean Dahlgren cited falling enrollment, rising costs and issues stemming from the rollout of the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid.
Dive Insight:
On April 29, DCAD received a notice from its accreditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, that it was being put on probation.
The accreditor requested a monitoring report by July 1 showing that the college could “sustain itself in the short or long term and is not at risk of imminent closure.” The report also sought to determine if the institution had the fiscal and human resources capacity to support its operations or documented financial resources and plans “to ensure financial stability.”
Now, just under a month later, the college is moving to close.
Dahlgren said that leadership “did not make the decision lightly and sought every possible avenue to avoid it,” noting also that the college’s board “worked diligently to find other funding solutions, but none allow us to overcome the longer-term problem of too few students.”
The president pointed to declining enrollment over the past few years and for the upcoming academic year, which “prevented us from adequately supporting our educational purposes and programs.”
Fall enrollment at DCAD fell 9.8% to 129 students between 2017 and 2022, and was down about 42% from 2010 levels, per federal data.
Based in downtown Wilmington, the college grew out of a partnership struck in 1997 between the Pratt Institute, in New York, and the Corcoran College of Art and Design, in Washington, D.C.. The latter was later acquired under financial duress by George Washington University.
Today, the college is independent and offers two-year programs in animation, fine arts, game art, graphic design, illustration, photography and video, and liberal arts.
With total operating revenue of just under $4 million, the college posted a $1.3 million deficit for the fiscal year ending last June, according to its latest audit report. It also carried $2.5 million in long-term debt, $2.2 million of which was made up of a note payable. The note had a sizable maturity of $381,715 due this year.
Pennsylvania College of Art and Design and Moore College of Art and Design have both agreed to accept all of DCAD’s admitted students and their credits, and to charge them the same or “very similar” tuition rate. Financial aid packages “should remain the same” at those institutions, according to an FAQ accompanying the president’s letter to the community.
Dahlgren said that DCAD is working with MSCHE to get the teach-out agreements fully approved.
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