Birmingham-Southern College to close after 168 years

Birmingham-Southern School will shut on the finish of Could after working into monetary difficulties and being unable to safe a monetary lifeline from the state, officers introduced Tuesday.

The School Board of Trustees voted unanimously to shut the longtime establishment, officers mentioned in a information launch. The announcement got here after laws aimed toward securing a taxpayer-backed mortgage for the 168-year-old personal school not too long ago stalled within the Alabama State Home.

“It is a tragic day for the School, our college students, our workers, and our alumni,” the Rev. Keith D. Thompson, chairman of the Board of Trustees, mentioned in an announcement from the faculty. “However it’s also a horrible day for Birmingham, for the neighborhoods who’ve surrounded our campus for greater than 100 years, and for Alabama.”

A lot of small personal faculties nationwide are struggling with a declining variety of conventional college-aged college students and competitors from bigger, richer establishments.

The school of about 1,000 college students is situated on the west facet of Birmingham, one among Alabama’s principal cities.

The choice to shut follows years of monetary difficulties and efforts to maintain the establishment open. The school mentioned the monetary crash of 2009 brought on a $25 million loss to the worth of its endowment. An audit in 2010 uncovered important accounting errors within the budgeting of federal scholar monetary help, which led to finances cuts and layoffs. Moody’s Traders Service downgraded the faculty’s bonds after income declines brought on the faculty to drew closely upon its endowment.

The personal school had hoped to safe a monetary lifeline from the state. The Alabama Legislature created a mortgage program final 12 months to supply monetary assist to distressed faculties, however state Treasurer Younger Boozer denied the college’s mortgage utility.

New laws was launched this 12 months. The school mentioned in a information launch that conversations with Home management “confirmed that the invoice didn’t have sufficient assist to maneuver ahead.”

Supporters of the laws had hoped to maintain the faculty open not only for the sake of the establishment, however due to the impression on the encircling neighborhoods if the 192-acre (78-hectare) campus is shuttered

Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin mentioned information of the closure is “disappointing and heartbreaking to all of us who acknowledge it as a stalwart of our neighborhood.”

“I’ve stood alongside members of our Metropolis Council to guard this establishment and its proud legacy of shaping leaders. It’s irritating that these values weren’t shared by lawmakers in Montgomery,” Woodfin mentioned Tuesday.

Birmingham-Southern Provost Laura Ok. Stultz mentioned the faculty is engaged on agreements with different establishments to helps college students “maximize the switch of credit to maintain them on observe.”

The college dates to 1856, when Southern College was based in Greensboro, Alabama. That college merged with Birmingham School in 1918 to grow to be Birmingham-Southern, with a campus west of downtown Birmingham.