Michigan University stirs concern with plans to cut most programs and all sports
Morgan Jenkins will return to Concordia University in Ann Arbor as a junior in the fall, but she is unsure how she will complete her degree after university officials announced that the elementary education teaching program she is enrolled in will be eliminated in 2025-26.
Numerous other academic programs, as well as intercollegiate sports, will also be cut in 2025-26, and few courses will be offered at the small, private university affiliated with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. The move is forcing hundreds of students, faculty and staff to determine their next steps as alumni connect on social media to organize and potentially save the 61-year-old institution.
“This has been the most heartbreaking thing I’ve ever experienced in my life because I love Concordia,” Jenkins said. “I had the best college experience anyone could ask for and to see it, for lack of a better word, thrown away is truly devastating.”
Concordia University announced June 20 that it will offer the 2024-25 academic year as usual, but then will eliminate the majority of its 53 campus programs due to financial problems it has struggled with for more than a decade. Starting in 2025-26, Concordia University in Ann Arbor will offer nine primarily medical programs for students on campus and seven online programs. It will also discontinue its 28 intercollegiate sports teams after 2024-25, according to the university.
The decision came after Concordia University sent a letter to students in February demanding that it cut costs to become sustainable after merging with Concordia University Wisconsin a decade ago. The university set up a task force that concluded in late May that Ann Arbor College had been running a deficit of $4.8 million a year for 10 years, despite receiving a $35.7 million grant from Concordia University Wisconsin over the past decade and increasing student enrollment, among other things.
University administrators encourage students to take online courses at Concordia University Wisconsin in 2025-26 and beyond or to transfer to the campus, located about 350 miles from Ann Arbor in Mequon, Wisconsin.
Concordia University President Patrick Ferry was unavailable for an interview, said Lisa Liljegren, a university spokeswoman.
But in a statement, Erik Ankerberg, president of Concordia University Wisconsin, said: “This has been a painful process for our entire Concordia family.”
“While this is not the outcome many people were hoping for, I am excited that our Lutheran mission in Ann Arbor will continue,” Ankerberg said. “As our CUWAA family heals and finds a new path forward, I am grateful to each and every member of the Concordia congregation for your fervent prayers. For the benefit of our students and in the service of our Lord, we will embrace the opportunity to forge a new path forward.”
With its realignment, Concordia University is the third religious institution in Michigan to run into trouble in recent years. Finlandia University, affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is set to close in the Upper Peninsula in 2023 after a 127-year history due to declining enrollment. Detroit-based Marygrove College, founded by the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, stopped its bachelor’s degree programs in 2017 and offered only master’s programs before closing in 2019 after 92 years due to a lack of enrollment.
But public universities are also struggling with enrollment numbers and costs that experts link to the decline in high school graduates, the coronavirus pandemic and a public debate questioning the value of higher education. The University of Michigan-Flint is currently in a strategic planning process after former UM President Mary Sue Coleman issued a directive in 2022 that said declining enrollment and graduation rates were unsustainable. Central Michigan University students raised concerns about their viability in 2022 based on enrollment numbers, and most public universities have also struggled with enrollment numbers in recent years.
Hundreds affected
The changes at Concordia will impact hundreds of the 1,200 students, as well as faculty and staff.
“All current students have a path to completing their degree,” Liljegren said. “The university is working this week to solidify local partnerships. Our academic advisors are working with students individually to create a plan that fits them.”
Students currently enrolled at Concordia College and former students said they were shocked, saddened and disturbed by the announcement, especially after many had hoped that enrollment numbers had increased dramatically in recent years.
“I’m really, really upset,” said Jenkins, a Cleveland resident.
After next year, Jenkins has one more year before she becomes a teacher. She has considered transferring to another college. After researching it, she realized that many of her credits may not transfer and she would have to stay in college for another year, which she says she doesn’t want or can’t afford.
Another option Concordia University has offered her is a “teach-out” to complete her teacher training at another college, Jenkins said, but school officials don’t have a plan for that yet. Or she could go online and complete her courses at Concordia University in Wisconsin. She’s also on the track team and won’t be able to compete in her final year of college.
“I’m at a loss right now,” said Jenkins, who works as a dorm counselor. “I’m really sad. I thought I had two more years with my friends and the great teachers and staff. But I guess that’s not going to happen.”
Chloe Gunter, a rising senior from Monroe who will graduate in May with a degree in business administration, said Concordia University is her “second home,” where everyone is like family. Although her future plans at the university will not be affected, she has sympathy for those who must find another path.
“I am so happy and grateful for the opportunities Concordia has given me,” said Gunter. “It is truly heartbreaking what is happening and I am very sad for the people who will not have the opportunity to experience the wonderful school that I was able to experience.”
Previous closure threats
Opened in 1963, Concordia University is located on a 197-acre site in Ann Arbor on the Huron River and is part of the Lutheran-affiliated Concordia University System, which includes six other colleges in Chicago, St. Paul (Minnesota), Irvine (California), Nebraska and Wisconsin. Many of the university’s students attended a Lutheran high school or have a connection to the Lutheran Church.
The University of Ann Arbor faced closure ten years ago due to low enrollment and financial problems, but was then merged with Concordia University in Wisconsin, according to the task force report, which also examined issues of accreditation, legal status and Lutheran identity and mission.
“Unfortunately, two factors complicated the financial dimension of this partnership,” the report said. “Across the United States, the ‘centralized model’ was being replaced by online learning, and (Concordia University Wisconsin’s) enrollment numbers began to slowly decline as Wisconsin’s demographics began to change. The result was that (Concordia University Ann Arbor) could not generate enough revenue to support itself, and (Concordia University Wisconsin) had no surplus revenue to share with (Concordia University Ann Arbor).”
“The university agreed to an alternative plan: (Concordia University Ann Arbor) would expand its athletic programs and recruit more athletes to campus,” the report continued. “While this strategy increased student enrollment, the campus’s operating costs increased significantly – to the point that the campus now spends every dollar it generates in revenue.”
David Harns, father of two sons who attend Concordia University, said his biggest concern about the report was that it “seemed to contain a particular conclusion that they were trying to figure out when they started writing the report.”
“Everything they found was designed to fit the preconceived conclusion that they apparently wanted to have from the beginning,” said Harns, who is from Dansville, a city southeast of Lansing. “When you read the report, you find a lot of different things that could have been interpreted as positive but are interpreted negatively. There are a lot of different sources of partnerships and revenue that could have been exploited but are not exploited. It seems that the Board of Regents took the easy way out and did not explore all the options.”
However, the board stated that this step was for the best.
“Our efforts in Ann Arbor and Wisconsin continue to follow our gospel mission,” said Pastor John Berg, chair of the Board of Trustees of Concordia University Wisconsin Ann Arbor, in a statement. “As we mourn the losses these changes bring, we look forward to finding new ways to live our mission and do our meaningful work.”
He is frustrated because the decision impacts one of his sons, who is in his third year and will have to transfer to another college to complete his business degree.
“As parents, you are putting your children in a situation where you expect the promises made to them as freshmen to be kept until they graduate,” Harns said. “That this news was announced in February and finally made permanent in June, when many different organizations had suggested many ways out and none of them were used, is very frustrating, to say the least.”
Never before had I seen so many lives destroyed “in such a short period of time as I am witnessing through the actions of Concordia University Wisconsin Ann Arbor,” wrote Rev. David A. Davis, district president of the Michigan District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, in an open letter to the Concordia congregation.
David wrote that the community should know three things: “God has that. … Jesus loved you with an everlasting love. … The Holy Spirit of God will give you wisdom on how to respond and what to do or not do next.”
Davis added a fourth comment for the students.
“Don’t be ‘that guy,'” Davis wrote. “The statistics on college students whose colleges close (or whose programs are eliminated) are grim. A very large percentage of them either never enroll in another institution of higher education or never complete a degree. Keep going. Keep going by the power of God.”
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