READING — Albright College says it ended its recent fiscal year with a more than $10 million surplus, zeroing out its deficit by slashing operational costs, eliminating half of its full-time staff, and selling unused property and other assets.
Still, experts warn that windfall does not guarantee long-term financial health, since much of the revenue was raised using one-time maneuvers. The numbers presented by the liberal arts college are also not audited, meaning they haven't been reviewed by a third party and could be unreliable.
Albright’s financial struggles are not unique. It is one of several small colleges or universities in Pennsylvania grappling with major challenges due to declining enrollment, an issue facing higher education nationwide.
In recent years, Albright’s net income margin — a key indicator of the college’s financial health and efficiency — has tanked, dropping lower than those of closed peers like the University of the Arts and Cabrini and Clarks Summit universities, data compiled through the Private College Advanced Financial Compass show (they were shared with Spotlight PA by College Viability, LLC).
After Albright’s faculty voted “no confidence” in then-President Jacquelyn Fetrow in April 2024, its Board of Trustees brought in new administrators and laid off 53 employees. The school also canceled some academic majors, and sold property and artwork.
In December, the college received permission to borrow up to $25 million of its endowment fund to prevent “the risk of closure.” Two months later, administrators told Reading City Council that the college was not in danger of closing because of the efforts to “right-size” the institution.
Administrators have touted this quick turnaround in recent news releases and donation requests, telling Reading City Council members in February that Albright would be “budget-neutral, if not budget-positive” by the summer.
Higher education experts, however, say it’s difficult to turn around a college by cutting expenses alone. Successful recoveries require “multiple points of entry” to generate revenue, said Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities. (The group advocates on behalf of many higher ed institutions in Pennsylvania, but Albright is not a member.)
“It's very difficult to cut your way to financial sustainability,” Pasquerella said. “It really does require an investment: alumni giving grants, support at the state and federal level.”
Gary Stocker, founder of the app College Viability, LLC, stressed that Albright’s current surplus relies on one-time revenue, which isn’t sustainable.
“At the end of the day, they still need to generate positive cash from operations,” he told Spotlight PA. “I hate to be redundant, but … you have a local symptom of a national disease.”
Moving forward, Albright aims to attract more students through expanding athletics programs and phasing out less popular majors like economics and philosophy with ones that are in demand like cybersecurity, according to Larry Bomback, interim chief financial officer and vice president of finance.
“It is the result of these one-time things which are not going to be repeatable, but this does give us the runway that we need to get into next year, so that we can see all these enrollment changes and programmatic changes … really take full effect,” he said.
‘Gigantic structural deficit’
Bomback doesn’t deny that the college was in rough shape financially. Albright was at “significant risk of closure,” he said.
“If nothing had happened this past year, I am pretty sure Albright would have been following a similar fate as some of those other colleges,” he said, adding the school didn’t have the “luxury” of time. “We had to cut costs immediately because there was this gigantic structural deficit.”
Former and current faculty and staff say they spent the past several years sounding the alarm, but the Board of Trustees didn’t heed them. In February, administrators told Reading City Council the college only ran deficits in 2023 and 2024. But records show Albright had been deeply in the hole since 2018.
Fetrow announced in May 2024 that she would resign as president amid mounting questions about the school’s finances. The board then hired Debra Townsley, touting her “experience in controlling spending while increasing enrollment and fundraising.”
Since taking over, the new administration has sold unused property, gaining $13.8 million in one-time revenue. The college has also received nearly $4 million in unrestricted donations since January, Bomback said. Albright is also looking to cut down on how much it uses its endowment fund, he added.
College leadership has also taken steps to reduce expenses through making programmatic changes and whittling staff from 360 full-time employees to 210. Looking for more sustainable revenue, the college is raising tuition and room and board this fall.
‘All in on athletics’
Key to Albright’s turnaround will be reversing the college’s plummeting enrollment, which has dropped nearly 50% since 2016.
Higher education nationwide has faced declining enrollment because of the “demographic cliff” — fewer Americans are having babies, so fewer college-age people are pursuing higher education.
Because Albright relies primarily on tuition revenue, maintaining and increasing enrollment is critical for its future.
Administrators say Albright’s incoming fall 2025 class is larger than anticipated, with 455 full-time undergraduate students matriculating this fall. Officials said annual enrollment hovers around 1,100 full-time undergraduate students, which they’d like to see return to 1,600.
To attract and retain students, Albright has announced new athletic and curricular programs.
Over the next few years, the college will phase out economics and philosophy majors while adding or expanding new ones like cybersecurity, vocal performance, and music production, and establishing new business tracks like human resources management. It will also offer new athletic programs, including men’s and women’s wrestling and an NCAA DIII stunt program.
Albright administrators say the college is known for its athletics.
“They always talk about how important athletics were to the campus experience and the student life experience of the college,” Bomback said of alumni he’s spoken with over the decades. “I think we're doubling down on something that is very important to the Albright holistic educational experience that you get.”
Resuscitating a financially strapped school requires community, faculty, student, and alumni buy-in, higher education experts said. Whether that support exists at Albright is hard to say.
The Albright College Alumni Association did not respond to requests for comment.
The newsroom also contacted past and present college trustees — who manage Albright’s finances and ensure its long-term sustainability — and they either did not respond or declined to talk.
Additionally, no faculty contacted by the newsroom responded to emails or wanted to speak on the record.
Albright administrators say faculty and staff are supportive of their strategy and want to be part of the change. They also point to recent alumni donations as proof of broader support of the financial recovery effort.
Bomback said the administration has “full confidence” that they’ll turn Albright around.
“We've already turned a gigantic corner, and now we honestly get to focus on the fun stuff,” he said. “Now we get to focus on top-line revenue, and that's going to be done through this strategy of really going all in on athletics and introducing some of these new academic programs that are going to differentiate us from the competition.”