By Erin Gretzinger and Ben Rappaport
This story is co-published with The Assembly
Scotland County leaders say they are devastated by the news that St. Andrews University will close on May 5.
The private liberal arts school announced the closure on Friday, citing financial difficulties.
“The financial realities of maintaining operations in Laurinburg have become unsustainable,” the university wrote in a statement on Facebook.
Laurinburg Mayor Jim Willis said St. Andrews, which has been in the town since 1958, has been a vital economic driver and cultural hub.
“Every person in Laurinburg has some connection to that place,” he said. “So many alumni are now integral parts of our community.”
The closure will deal a local economic blow of up to $70 million a year, according to the school’s estimates, said Chris English, executive director of the Laurinburg Chamber of Commerce.
English said he has already heard from several local business owners who are unsure how they will stay afloat without St. Andrews students, faculty and staff.
“We’re all still in shock,” he said. “And we can try to put a number on it, but I think we still don’t know the true deep impact this will have in Scotland County.”
Scotland County Manager April Snead said the cultural loss will be “immeasurable.” Volunteers from St. Andrews helped out with festivals, oyster roasts and fundraisers.
“We’re going to miss the presence of those students very much,” she said. “We are very concerned and know we will feel the loss.”
St. Andrews has long faced an uphill battle to survive. After the college lost its accreditation in the late 2000s, a 2011 merger with a Florida-based college, Webber International University, was the school’s saving grace.
But the merger wasn’t enough to save St. Andrews in the end. President Tarun Malik told faculty at a meeting Friday morning that Webber International University’s board of trustees decided to close the university.
“I’m not sure if I have the right words to say this. I’m going to try to control my emotions as best I can,” Malik told faculty, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The Assembly and Border Belt Independent. “It was not an easy decision.”
“We explored every viable path forward,” Nelson Marquez, president and CEO for Webber International University, said in a statement posted on Facebook. “But the persistent financial and enrollment challenges facing St. Andrews could no longer be mitigated through internal solutions alone. This was a deeply painful but necessary decision.”
Faculty were first alerted that the university was in dire straits when they received incomplete paychecks earlier this month, getting paid about 85% of what they were owed, Malik acknowledged in the meeting. Malik said the university did not have the funding to meet its payroll obligations for the month to the school’s employees.
Malik assured the faculty that they will eventually be paid the full amount of what they are owed once the university can sell assets and take other measures. He said the university has been increasingly stringent about collecting student payments over the past few months.
“There is a bucket load of money still to be collected from students who are still enrolled there.… This is business, folks,” he said. “We have been housing, feeding, whatever else it is, with minus three cents in our pockets.”
Malik said the university has been “on our knees” asking for financial assistance over the past several months to keep its doors open, but a drop in enrollment over the past several years and a continued decline projected for fall of 2025 was the final nail in the coffin. Most faculty, including Malik, will be laid off, he said, and a few will stay behind to help with the transition.
“Between now and May 5, all I can do is plead to your sensibilities and plead to your sense of professionalism,” Malik said. “We need to make sure we conduct a very orderly transition and closure of this campus.”
Taking Care of Students
In the decade or so since it merged with Webber, St. Andrews overhauled its academic offerings, slashing its hallmark liberal arts programs and adding online and career-focused courses in their place. Like many small, struggling private colleges, St. Andrews turned to athletics to boost its enrollment.
But the university faced criticism for some of its attempts to change St. Andrews’ fortunes. The school solicited donations from Arthur Keiser, a controversial figure who owns several colleges that have faced regulatory troubles. Students complained about inadequate campus facilities and equipment, and former faculty and student athletes criticized the school for admitting academically struggling students without sufficient support services.
Its athlete-recruitment strategy has also become central to several ongoing lawsuits. One student, who said she was raped by a member of the school’s soccer team, filed a lawsuit alleging that the school further traumatized her after the president at the time called an all-campus assembly and said “a sexual assault and not a rape” took place. Two other former students sued St. Andrews and said it recruited to the school’s wrestling team a known sex offender, who later assaulted them on campus.
Both cases remain in court. St. Andrews claims it followed legal protocols when students reported assaults and took reasonable action by enforcing no-contact orders. Lawyers for the university argue that the school and its administrators should not be blamed for the trauma caused by another student.
In the school’s final weeks, Malik said the focus will be on ensuring students have pathways for finishing their studies. He said the school’s registrar’s office has conducted degree audits for students and communicated with neighboring schools where students can transfer.
St. Andrews released a webpage on Friday afternoon with a list of at least 17 schools that have expressed interest in taking on St. Andrews students left in limbo. The school said official “teach-out” agreements with the schools are currently in progress. The university said more information will become available on April 28.
“We have to make sure the students are all taken care of,” Malik said. “Otherwise, we will end up in nasty class action lawsuits, and we have enough on our hands already.”
The university was scheduled to hold final exams in the coming weeks, but Malik said professors should immediately turn in final grades before the school shuts down. The school will still conduct a graduation ceremony for spring 2025 graduates, which will be its final class.
It’s not immediately clear what St. Andrews’ closure indicates about the future of Webber. Malik told the faculty that no representatives from Florida—presumably referring to Webber, which is based in Babson Park—will be at graduation.
“This is our show,” he said.
State House Rep. Garland Pierce, a Democrat who represents Hoke and Scotland Counties, said he was “shocked and saddened” by the school’s closure. He said he worked with the university and NCWorks Career Center to organize a job fair on Wednesday for faculty.
“Since the announcement, my office has been in touch on a daily basis with students, families, university personnel, and alumni,” he said in a statement on Monday. “We have known for a long time that St. Andrews is an important regional hub. It is clear from hearing these individual stories that it has been more than that—it has been a source of opportunity and hope for generations of people in our region, and it is beloved by its alumni across the nation.”