After surpassing its $5 million fund-raising goal by $1 million, Guilford College anticipates a lean academic year starting in August as enrollment drops below 1,000 students.
This year, acting President Jean Parvin Bordewich mobilized staff and alumni to raise about $6 million from donors, averting the potential loss of academic accreditation for the 188-year-old Quaker college in Greensboro. It had until June 30 to raise $5 million in unrestricted cash, a requirement of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.
Next, to nail down its accreditation, Guilford needs to show by December a balanced budget for the fiscal year that started July 1. With enrollment projected at roughly 950 students, down about 100 from last year, staff continues to cut costs, according to Bordewich.
“We are committed to balanced budgets no matter what because they are essential to maintain our accreditation,’’ she said in an email to supporters earlier this week. “That means we are still making expense cuts while trying to bolster revenue for fiscal year 2026.’’
Battling financially for years, Guilford’s efforts illustrate success, at least for now, as other institutions have struggled, or failed. Many colleges and universities face increasing financial pressure as the number of high school graduates declines and more students opt for other careers.
Johnson C. Smith University, Charlotte’s only historically black college, has entered 12 months of probation after the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges found lapses in the school’s financial responsibility. St. Andrews University in Scotland County closed in May after years of declining enrollment. St. Augustine’s University of Raleigh has experienced falling enrollment, as well.
”We are hardly alone in the kind of struggles and challenges that we’ve faced over the last decade,’’ Bordewich said. “It’s endemic to most small liberal arts colleges that don’t have huge endowments or a lot of prestige.’’
Shutting two dormitories is going to save Guilford about $100,000, requiring the assignment of about 50 students to other residence halls. While financially necessary, the move is also aimed at administrators’ reinvigorated goal “to foster collaboration, build some stronger in-person connections and student residential experience,’’ said Terra Roane, assistant dean of student affairs.
She joined other Guilford leaders on a Zoom call last week to explain their strategy to alumni and other supporters now that they’ve gotten financial breathing room. Restructuring debt reduced principal and interest by more than $1.3 million this year, according to acting COO Keith Millner.
Fundraising has allowed the college to pare past-due debts to vendors ranging from printing to specialized building maintenance. Since January, Millner has reduced outstanding accounts payable to about $1.3 million from $2.5 million. The percentage of debt older than 90 days has shrunk from 68% to less than 30%, he said.
Calling late payments “a black mark on the college (where) we talk about integrity,’’ Bordewich said the practice “was hurting a lot of small vendors, especially the people in Greensboro who had done business with us for years and counted on us, and they can’t afford to have things paid six months late.”
Broadly, she said, Guilford is setting a new course after its previous strategy led to its financial demise.
“The business model Guilford has used for a number of years has not generated sufficient revenue, in part because enrollment declined and in part because we were competing based heavily on price,” Bordewich said. “In short, we have not been charging enough to cover the cost of delivering a Guilford education, even after making substantial cost cuts.”
Guilford draws three-quarters of its students from North Carolina “where our competitors are less expensive public universities,’’ she said. Under the new marketing tag `”Uniquely Guilford,” the college plans to broaden recruitment geographically while intensifying academic efforts with greater investment in high-quality teaching. Over the next three to five years, the president said she envisions Guilford “becoming financially sound and fully accredited, smaller in size for a while.”
Preparing students for the workplace is a shortcoming Bordewich said administrators need to address. Improving the network of alumni for mentoring and internships is “a major thing on my to-do list,” she said.
Guilford’s campus is located about 15 minutes from Piedmont Triad International Airport and major aerospace investments in recent years. Boom Supersonic and Marshall USA are preparing to commence operations as next-generation plane maker JetZero announced plans last month to invest $4.7 billion and create more than 14,500 jobs.
“There’s major, major changes happening here in the city; major new manufacturing and technology industries are locating here,” Bordewich said. “We need to integrate with them and see what mutual opportunities we can create with each other.”
