Trinity College fails financial test

Vermont Business Magazine, Aug 01, 2000 by Kelley, Kevin J

A surge of optimistic determination invigorated some officials and supporters of Trinity College of Vermont soon after the announcement last year that the mainly women's Catholic school would strive to remain open despite acute financial problems. Trinity's most committed boosters believed that salvation would be found in some form.

But it was not to be.

The board of trustees decided last month to close the college by September 1. The painful choice was quickly seconded by the executive council of the Vermont Sisters of Mercy, the order that founded Trinity 75 years ago.

A combination of adverse factors some unique to the Burlington

institution, some common to small women's colleges throughout the

United States - made it impossible for Trinity to survive.

As a school with both a Catholic and a women-only tradition, Trinity could draw from a limited - and shrinking - pool of potential applicants. A lack of sports facilities and other amenities on campus further hampered Trinity in the intense competition for tuition-paying residential undergraduates. Its comparatively tiny $2 million endowment and mounting budget deficits prevented the school from making the capital investments needed to attract student."

Some critics contend as well that Trinity was too slow in adapting to changing circumstances. Most women's colleges have abandoned their singlegender orientation or have closed entirely in the past 40 years, but many of those that survived the initial shakeout in the 1960s and '70s found ways to thrive. Indeed, the 79 remaining women's colleges in the United States have enjoyed a collective resurgence, with total applications for admission nearly doubling during the past decade.

Trinity did introduce a variety of innovations, a few of which proved successful. Especially notable, officials say, was the launch in 1972 of a degree program aimed at women of nontraditional college age who are raising children and/or working outside the home.

In recent years, however, enrollment continued to slump in the financially crucial residential undergraduate sector. Overall, the number of students attending Trinity fell precipitously from 1,323 in the 1998-99 academic year to about 800 this year.

The announcement last July that Trinity would have to merge with another institution or close its doors proved fatal to the school's prospects. With the writing having been chalked on the wall, "we could not recruit enough traditional-age residential students for the fall term to be financially viable for the upcoming academic year," said board chairman Edward Connors in explaining the decision to cease operations.

As a reflection of what proved to be a false dawn, Trinity set its sights last fall on attracting 120 first-year residential students for the Fall 2000 semester. That target figure later had to be halved. And in the end, only 30 accepted applicants had placed deposits to enter Trinity in September.

The fate of the school's 125 faculty and staff, along with its prime real estate remains uncertain.

Nearly all of Trinity's employees will lose their jobs by September 1. A transition initiative is attempting to assist them in finding new work and in placing the school's remaining students in suitable programs at other institutions.

Trinity's closure does not affect the lease arrangement whereby Fletcher Allen Health Care makes use of some buildings on the campus. Other facilities will likely be redeveloped in the coming years, with opportunities for adding to Burlington's crimped housing stock seen as particularly appealing.