Wisconsin community reeling after decision to close Northland College

The Ashland and the Northland College community are reimagining a future without the small private school that’s been a fixture in the region for more than a century.

The Northland Board of Trustees announced Wednesday that the college would close at the end of the academic year after 133 years.

Last spring, the college announced it was in danger of shutting its doors after revealing it faced a $12 million deficit. At the time, Northland leaders said last school year could be its last. That prompted more than 1,000 donors to raise $1.5 million. At the same time, the college underwent a major reorganization and laid off employees to find about $7 million in savings.

Despite those efforts, the board’s chair Ted Bristol said in a statement Wednesday that financial headwinds and declining enrollment proved to be an insurmountable barrier to Northland’s survival.

Kelby Youngberg, a senior at Northland, said he’s grateful to have spent four years at the college. Even so, he’s sad for students who are now facing the same upheaval he experienced last spring.

“It’s tough,” Youngberg said. “It’s so hard for a lot of the students, especially athletes who came in this year, who now are having to find another school.”

Northland had 257 students at the beginning of the fall semester, which is down from about 450 in 2023. A decade ago, an average of about 600 students attended each year. With 100 students graduating this spring, the college said it could not continue to operate without significant growth in enrollment.

About 70 percent of Northland’s revenues come from tuition and fees. The rest comes from government grants, contracts and private fundraising.

Youngberg said Bristol in a campus forum apologized to faculty, staff and students for the college’s failure to avoid closure. The Northland senior said he was frustrated with the board over the stress the campus community has faced. Both students and faculty say they’ve received little to no communication from the board prior to the announcement.

The college has 150 faculty and staff after laying off nine employees in the spring. Elizabeth Andre, an outdoor education professor at Northland, said faculty and staff are heartbroken and feel for colleagues’ lives that have been upended.

Despite that, she said some faculty want to stay in the area and remain committed to the college’s mission of tackling complex environmental and social challenges. She said a small group is forming a new organization dubbed the Northland Corporation for the Environmental Liberal Arts.

“There’s a campus here that is still beautiful and has a lot of good facilities that could help create something in the region that does something similar to what we talked about with our community visioning last spring, of being a hub for partnerships that are mission-centric and for community housing and for economic development and rural community life and social justice and all those things,” Andre said.

Last year, faculty and staff proposed an initiative, dubbed True Northland, that sought to raise revenues, cut costs and expand the college’s reach. The plan proposed cutting employees, reducing student enrollment and generating revenue by renting out residential halls and office space.

Andre said faculty and staff have not yet received details about whether they will receive any severance or extension of salary and benefits. The college said it’s still working to determine end dates for faculty and staff, and the college is hoping to assist employees with finding new work.

A new leader will guide the college through its final days after Northland President Chad Dayton resigned. On Wednesday, the board appointed Barb Lundberg, the college’s vice president of academic affairs, to serve as interim president.

“Each student will be paired with an academic advisor to guide them through options to complete their degrees, such as teach-out agreements with cooperating institutions, as well as transfer to other colleges,” Lundberg said in a statement, adding more details would be provided in the coming days.

Youngberg said he and other students trust Lundberg to work on their behalf.

“I believe that she’s doing the best she can at this time,” Youngberg said.

The city of Ashland lists Northland as one its major employers, and past media reports indicate the college created a more than $45 million of economic impact over a five-county region. Ashland Mayor Matt MacKenzie said his heart is heavy over the closure.

“It’s going to obviously affect the economy. How? We’re not quite sure yet. We’ll see how that goes, and some of it depends on what happens next out there on that property,” MacKenzie said.

Ashland’s mayor said it’s unclear what the college’s plans are for the buildings. He added Northland is intertwined with the community, and many alumni still live in the region. MacKenzie said it’s his hope that employees will be able to remain and find other jobs, but he added that Ashland is not the only community affected.

“Some of it, I think, is declining enrollments because we don’t have as many young people,” he said.

Falling enrollment, increasing costs or decreased support have hit other small Wisconsin campuses, including Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee. The university shut down in 2023 after operating for 85 years. At least six two-year campuses in the Universities of Wisconsin system have also been shuttered or announced plans to close their doors.