READING — Albright College is eliminating 20 academic programs and 17 faculty positions as it continues to grapple with dwindling enrollment, financial challenges, and new federal policies for student loan funding.
Students and faculty at the private liberal arts school expected the Board of Trustees to make a final decision on program cuts in December. Instead, trustees approved changes on Nov. 1, and students and faculty learned about them two days later. Dozens of programs are affected: 20 majors and minors are being cut altogether, including dance, painting, film & video, digital and strategic communications, public health, Holocaust studies, and women’s & gender studies.
Albright administrators and the Board of Trustees in a Nov. 3 email to faculty said low enrollment was the “primary driver” for the eliminations and curriculum changes, while stressing that the college’s financial situation accelerated the need for quick action.
The latest cuts come three months after Albright received approval from Berks County commissioners to borrow up to $65 million in bonds through the county municipal authority. At the time, college representatives said the bond could be used to refinance $42 million in debt, purchase dorms, and maintain facilities, but the bond hasn’t been put on the market. Executive Vice President James Gaddy told Spotlight PA in an email that the college is “still working with an investment company.”
Albright has struggled financially for several years and attempted to get on stronger footing since Debra Townsley was hired as interim president in 2024. However, a material weakness in the college’s latest audited financials and a noncompliance warning issued by its accreditor this year underscore its continued strain.
The program changes will begin in the 2027-28 school year. Administrators said current students enrolled in affected programs will receive “individual advising and degree plans” to help complete their studies.
Programs that were eliminated often had fewer than nine students enrolled as a major, Gaddy said. Some faculty have disagreed with programs being characterized as having low enrollment.
Albright administrators did not provide enrollment data to explain the curricula changes. And Albright also declined to provide recent overall enrollment figures for the college. The most recent public data show the college had 1,230 undergraduates in the fall semester of 2024.
The cuts have led to outcry from alumni and a petition seeking the removal of key college administrators, including Townsley and Gaddy.
On Nov. 5, more than 100 Albright students took to North 13th Street in Reading, near the shuttered Freedman Gallery, to protest the cuts.
The protest was weeks in the making and followed a petition seeking “reform across the board and proper communication.” The petition calls for replacing trustees “if our needs cannot be met by those in current position” and adding new leaders to oversee disability accommodations and Title IX investigations. The petition also rebukes plans to integrate AI into the curriculum; demands in-person and online peer tutoring rather than AI tutors; and calls for a return to in-person, rather than virtual, healthcare.
Gaddy told Spotlight PA that Albright is “committed to ensuring that students understand the ethical and responsible use of Artificial Intelligence across the curriculum.”
He added that since the administration changed over in 2024, college officials have met regularly with the “Student Government Association to address concerns and to resolve them, which we do when we are aware of them.”
“Change is difficult, and higher education is a changing landscape right now,” Gaddy said.
Linda Simovic, an Albright trustee and alum who joined the board this year, explained on Substack why she supports the cuts.
“I’m writing because the people affected deserve a real explanation, not a press release. They deserve the numbers we looked at and the forces we couldn’t wish away. This wasn’t a board and a president doing something horrible,” Simovic wrote.
She pointed to the steep drop in enrollment facing higher education as a whole, declining student interest in certain programs, Albright’s poor financial planning, and new federal student loan rules.
College officials also said that the U.S. “Department of Education’s new accountability standards emphasizing graduate earnings and educational value” played a role.
The federal department in June announced a final rule establishing a postsecondary education accountability test. Undergraduate programs are now required to show that graduates earn more than those with a high school diploma. The same goes for graduate programs — graduates are expected to earn more than those with bachelor’s degrees. If programs can’t show a “modest financial return,” they could be cut off from federal student loans.
Albright College says educational institutions nationwide are reviewing academic offerings “to ensure they meet student needs, support career readiness, and remain sustainable.”
“These requirements create another challenge for financially vulnerable private colleges,” said Gary Stocker, founder of College Viability, LLC, a company that provides apps for comparing schools. “Institutions already struggling with enrollment and tuition revenue may now have to reconsider academic programs that are important to their identity but produce relatively low graduate earnings.”
On Nov. 1, the Board of Trustees also approved terminating 17 full-time, tenured professors by August 2027, according to a document obtained by Spotlight PA.
Gaddy told Spotlight PA “we cannot publicly discuss personnel issues.” Administrators previously announced staff cuts in 2024 and earlier this year.
The terminations affect about a third of the faculty at Albright, according to an internal report obtained by Spotlight PA. Factoring in the terminations and planned retirements, the report anticipates 30 to 35 faculty will remain for the 2027-28 school year, “assuming that others do not leave for new positions.”
Faculty were not consulted about these changes before the November announcement, unlike with prior program cuts, according to the report and conversations with five professors.
Gaddy said Albright’s Board of Trustees, administration, and faculty had “ongoing discussions about curricular changes and the impact of changing student demands and the impact on our programs.” He said the board’s final decision was made earlier than initially anticipated because faculty asked for “notification in their job position sooner rather than later” and so trustees “met their request.”
Professors have 15 business days to individually appeal their terminations under the interim faculty handbook (which the internal report says was changed in violation of their contracts) approved by Albright trustees on Nov. 1. Administrators said “the board has the ultimate authority to make changes to college policies.”