AURORA — Wells College, which has operated in Aurora on the eastern side of Cayuga Lake for 156 years, will soon be closing. 

Citing financial difficulties, the Cayuga County school on April 29 announced plans to close at the end of this academic semester.

“As trustees, we have a fiduciary responsibility to the institution; we have determined after a thorough review that the College does not have adequate financial resources to continue,” Marie Chapman Carroll, chair of the Wells College board of trustees, and Jonathan Gibralter, president of Wells College, said in a letter posted on the school’s website.

The college’s 156th and final commencement ceremony is set for the morning of May 18.

It’ll be the second prominent private Central New York college to close in the last year, following the closure of Cazenovia College on June 30, 2023.

The Wells College letter went on to acknowledge that many small colleges like Wells have faced “enormous financial challenges,” which have been “exacerbated” by the global pandemic, a shrinking pool of undergraduate students nationwide, inflationary pressures, and an “overall negative sentiment towards higher education.”

“But revenues, unfortunately, are not projected to be sufficient for Wells’ long-term financial stability,” Carroll and Gibralter said. 

Wells College says it has reached an agreement with Manhattanville University in Westchester County to become the school’s “preferred teach-out partner,” helping to “ensure that Wells’ current students matriculate and our institutional mission and legacy continue.”

A teach-out agreement is a contract between schools that will allow students to finish their program of study at one or more schools, per the federal government’s website dedicated to federal student aid.

“We have developed additional teach-out agreements with these other teach-out partners: Excelsior University, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Keuka College, Le Moyne College, Mercy University, SUNY Brockport,” the Wells officials said in the letter.

Wells College says it has created a website which lists additional information. “We will continue to update this website and communicate with our stakeholders as we finalize plans for the closure of Wells,” per the letter.

Reaction

New York State Senator Rachel May (D–Syracuse) issued a statement on X on the day of the closure announcement, reacting to the news.

“This is devastating news. Wells College has been a venerable and creative institution, educating students, employing faculty and staff, and serving as a good neighbor in Aurora for over a century and a half. The winds of change in higher education these days just proved too strong for them to withstand. I have spoken with President Gibralter and offered any assistance we can provide to the college, its employees, students, and the local community in this transition,” May said.

The Middle States Commission on Higher Education, an accreditation organization, on May 2 took action against Wells College, saying “the institution failed to inform the Commission of closure in a timely manner or to properly plan for closure with prior approval through substantive change.” 

The Middle States Commission is requiring Wells to complete a monitoring report by May 13, demonstrating evidence that the institution has achieved and can sustain ongoing compliance with its standards. The college also needs to submit “a comprehensive, implementable teach-out plan and signed teach-out agreements with appropriate teach-out partner institutions.”

Wells College was founded in 1868 by Henry Wells, who was one of the founders of the American Express Company and Wells Fargo & Company. 

Wells Seminary, as it was originally called, had an original goal “to educate women who would further society’s “intellectual culture” as wives and mothers,” a mission that evolved as the campus grew, per the history page on the Wells College website.