Tag: Kean

  • New Jersey City University and Kean University sign official deal to merge

    New Jersey City University and Kean University sign official deal to merge

    Dive Brief:

    • New Jersey City University has signed a definitive agreement to become part of nearby Kean University, the institutions announced in a joint press release Wednesday. 
    • The agreement — approved unanimously by both universities’ governing boards — is subject to accreditor approval by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education as well as by state and federal regulators. Officials expect the merger to be completed by July. 
    • Once complete, NJCU will become “Kean Jersey City.” The two public institutions signed a letter of intent to merge in May after recent years of financial and governance turmoil at NJCU.

    Dive Insight:

    The agreement marks a major milestone for NJCU, which a state-appointed monitor directed to find a financial partner early in 2024. 

    Under the merger terms, Kean will take on NJCU’s assets and liabilities. It will also honor NJCU students’ academic credits, need-based financial aid commitments and merit scholarships if they transition to Kean. Once they do, students will pay Kean’s tuition and fee prices, which amounted to $15,300 for full-time undergraduate students in the 2025-26 academic year.

    A steering committee will oversee the next steps of the merger, including the complicated work of academic and operational integration, as well as navigating regulatory and governmental reviews. 

    As part of the agreement, NJCU students will gain access to Kean’s student services, clubs and organizations after the merger. 

    As for student sports, the agreement establishes a separate advisory committee to look at athletic programming at NJCU post-merger. The university currently competes in more than a dozen NCAA Division III sports, including men’s basketball, women’s softball, and men’s and women’s volleyball and track and field. The committee is expected to make its final report to Kean’s president in December.

    As part of the fiscal 2026 state budget, New Jersey lawmakers lined up $10 million for Kean to help fund its merger with NJCU. The money is to help with feasibility studies, planning and legal work as the two institutions integrate. 

    NJCU’s board voted in March to pursue a merger with Kean. The move came after years of financial distress followed by recovery and turnaround work led by Andrés Acebo, who joined NJCU as interim president in January 2023 before being named permanent president this September. 

    About six months prior to his appointment, NJCU had declared a financial emergency.  Declining enrollment and funding shortfalls led the university to increase scholarships, add academic programs, and spend more on student services and real estate expansions. Those moves failed to turn enrollment around and “instead served to dramatically increase NJCU’s expenses,” New Jersey’s comptroller said in 2023. 

    But by fall 2024, Fitch Ratings lifted the NJCU’s outlook from negative to stable, with analysts citing “significant progress toward achieving fiscal balance despite continued pressure on student enrollment.” The improvements were the product of both state aid and cost cutting at the institution. 

    In fall 2023, NJCU’s student headcount stood at 5,833 students, down 27% from 2018 levels, according to federal data. By fall 2024, the university’s total enrollment fell another 6% year over year, though first-year, full-time students grew by 3% and transfers surged 28%,  NJ.com reported.

    In a statement Wednesday, Acebo said the merger with Kean represents “a significant milestone in a process designed to secure the future of our institution and the communities we have proudly served for nearly a century.”

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  • Kean U to receive $10M in state funding to support merger

    Kean U to receive $10M in state funding to support merger

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    Dive Brief:

    • Kean University is set to receive an additional $10 million to support its acquisition of New Jersey City University, as part of New Jersey’s fiscal 2026 budget. 
    • Kean would have to return the money to the state if the merger is not completed as detailed in the two public universities’ May letter of intent. Kean and NJCU are expected to finalize their merger by June 2026, pending regulatory and accreditor approvals.
    • Further reshaping Kean finances, its board on Monday approved in-state tuition rates for all students beginning in 2026-27 — the first academic year the university is set to fully control NJCU post-merger.

    Dive Insight:

    Following years of financial challenges, NJCU found a lifeline in Kean after a state-appointed monitor ordered the university to find a financial partner.

    The $10 million state allocation — a small fraction of the $3.1 billion New Jersey is set to spend on higher education in fiscal 2026 — will go toward “feasibility studies, planning and legal work tied to the merger” between NJCU and Kean. But it’s unlikely to cover the full cost of the process.

    In 2020, a University System of Georgia regent estimated that just changing the name of an institution — updating everything from signage to stationery — cost over $3 million.

    Under Kean and NJCU’s letter of intent, the former would assume the latter’s assets and liabilities and NJCU’s campus would be renamed Kean Jersey City.

    As the two universities go through the merger process, Kean is also to receive state funding for over 1,100 NJCU jobs in the form of a loan, per the state’s budget. If the merger falls through, the funded positions will return to NJCU.

    A 2019 working paper found that, on average, a merger between two nonprofit colleges raised tuition prices by students between 5% and 7%.

    But Kean appears to be poised to buck that trend with its elimination of out-of-state tuition. Under the new plan, the university will drop out-of-state tuition for current and new undergraduate and graduate students.

    “Kean’s outstanding academics, proximity to New York City and growing research programs make the University appealing to students outside of New Jersey,” Michael Salvatore, Kean’s executive vice president for academic and administrative operations, said in a Tuesday statement. “This will enable us to tap into expanded markets while bringing students into the state.”

    In the 2025-26 academic year, full-time students from New Jersey paid $7,649.80 per semester in tuition and fees, while their out-of-state counterparts paid $12,008.58. In-state and out-of-state graduate students paid $1,019.54 and $1,206.64 per credit, respectively.

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  • New Jersey City University takes key step to become part of Kean University

    New Jersey City University takes key step to become part of Kean University

    Dive Brief:

    • New Jersey City University is set to become part of nearby Kean University after the two public institutions signed a letter of intent Thursday to combine by June 2026. The merger would be subject to accreditor and regulatory approvals.
    • Under the plan, Kean would assume NJCU’s assets and liabilities and operate the institution as “Kean Jersey City,” the universities said. Executive oversight would fall to Kean’s president, who would appoint a chancellor to lead Kean Jersey City. NJCU will have some representation on Kean’s board of trustees, per the letter.
    • NJCU signaled in March that it planned to pursue a merger with Kean after past years of budgetary struggles and a directive from a state-appointed monitor to find a financial partner.

    Dive Insight:

    In Thursday’s release, Kean and NJCU said that their combination would “preserve NJCU’s mission of serving first-generation, adult and historically underserved students while advancing Kean’s role as the state’s urban research university and a newly designated R2 research university.” 

    Luke Visconti, chair of the NJCU’s trustee board, said Thursday’s letter of intent “provides an important framework for the detailed discussions that will follow.” 

    Still to come are full due diligence, a definitive agreement and a detailed outline for combining the two public universities. That process will be collaborative and “rooted in student and community engagement” so that the merger with Kean celebrates the two “distinct cultures” of the universities, NJCU Interim President Andrés Acebo said in a statement. 

    According to the institutions, an integration planning team with representatives from both universities will begin work immediately, coordinating with New Jersey’s state higher education office. The two universities will develop shared services agreements to streamline operations and boost student success, officials said. 

    Kean is the larger institution of the two, with 13,352 students in fall 2023, which was down by 5% from five years prior, according to federal data.  NJCU, meanwhile, had 5,833 students in 2023, down 10.8% from the year before and 27% lower than 2018 levels. 

    NJCU’s enrollment declines have contributed to its recent financial turmoil. A little over three years ago, the university declared a full-blown financial crisis after heavy spending on real estate expansions, student services and scholarships failed to reverse its enrollment slowdown and enlarged the university’s expenses.

    In 2023, the state comptroller’s office issued a scathing report that accused administrators of failing to fully inform NJCU’s board of the dire financial state, and which also suggested the university “likely” broke federal law by using emergency pandemic funding for an existing scholarship program. 

    Since then, Acebo has taken the reins, and the state has appointed a monitor to help ensure NJCU rights its finances and operations. State lawmakers also provided $17 million in critical stabilization funding to the institution.  

    In November, Fitch Ratings lifted the university’s outlook from negative to stable, citing “significant progress toward achieving fiscal balance despite continued pressure on student enrollment.”

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  • NJCU, Kean announce plans to pursue merger

    NJCU, Kean announce plans to pursue merger

    New Jersey City University has agreed to pursue a merger with nearby Kean University, a move encouraged by state officials to help stabilize NJCU after financial struggles in recent years.

    On Wednesday, NJCU’s Board of Trustees voted 7 to 0 to enter merger negotiations with Kean.

    The vote comes two and a half years after NJCU declared a financial emergency, revealing that a surplus gave way to a budget deficit, prompting job cuts and state scrutiny. Then-NJCU president Sue Henderson stepped down in June 2024 amid backlash.

    NJCU’s financial situation was so dire at the time that the state threw it a $10 million lifeline.

    As NJCU has sought to dig out of its financial hole, state officials essentially sent a message to the public, four-year institution that it needed to find a partner—whether it wanted to or not.

    A March 2024 report from an independent state monitor assigned in the aftermath of NJCU’s financial collapse urged the university to sell assets and “explore any type of affiliation or partnership that could help create long-term financial sustainability with improved student outcomes.”

    Last April the Office of the Secretary of Higher Education set a deadline of March 31, 2025, for the university to identify potential partners as part of a transition plan that also called for the board to take actions to increase revenue and lower debt, among other efforts to fix NJCU’s finances.

    Going Forward

    NJCU’s board voted Wednesday “to enter into negotiations with Kean University for a Letter of Intent outlining the terms of a strategic merger,” according to the board resolution.

    Kean’s proposed plan would rename NJCU as Kean Jersey City. The proposal notes that in addition to being near one another, the two universities are both minority- and Hispanic-serving institutions that “share a profound commitment to transformative urban education.”

    Kean’s proposal emphasizes the integration of shared services, “streamlined administrative functions” and the “strategic alignment of academic programs”; it also touts its relative financial strength. Athletic programs would be combined as a “unified entity” under the merger plan.

    Kean’s Board of Trustees would govern the merged institutions, though the proposal notes that membership could expand to include seats for representatives from the NJCU community. Potential board members would be appointed by the governor’s office.

    NJCU interim president Andrés Acebo addressed the potential merger in a statement to campus, writing that there is more due diligence work ahead and promising transparency.

    “I encourage every member of our community—students, faculty, staff, and alumni—to remain engaged as we build a future that honors our past while embracing new opportunities. With unwavering hope and a shared resolve, we will continue to shape NJCU into a beacon of opportunity and excellence for generations to come,” Acebo wrote in Wednesday’s message.

    In a separate message, Kean president Lamont Repollet noted that “this is the beginning of a process that will unfold over the months and years to come and will include our faculty, staff, students and communities.” Repollet even used language that the Trump administration—which has taken aim at DEI efforts—has sought to banish.

    “Both Kean and NJCU share missions dedicated to fostering an inclusive learning environment that empowers students to succeed,” Repollet wrote Wednesday. “By merging our strengths, we can deepen our commitment and resources to diversity, equity and inclusion, ensuring that every student has the support they need to thrive and persist through graduation.”

    State officials issued their own messages applauding the move toward a merger.

    In a joint statement from New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, and state secretary of higher education Brian Bridges, officials said they were encouraged by the progress at NJCU.

    “The NJCU Board’s intent to pursue a strategic merger with Kean University continues this commitment and marks the beginning of a thorough and deliberative process to unify these mission-aligned institutions. We look forward to working with state and institutional leaders on the path to a successful transition that empowers student success and long-term resilience,” they wrote.

    Merger Outlook

    The potential merger between NJCU and Kean—which still requires additional approvals, including by state officials and accreditors—appears to be the first one of the year.

    News that the two institutions are taking steps toward a strategic partnership comes shortly after the collapse of a planned merger between the University of Findlay and Bluffton University. The two private, religiously affiliated institutions in Ohio first announced merger plans in March 2024. But despite a year of planning, Findlay’s board pulled out abruptly last week, surprising Bluffton.

    One sticking point seemed to be athletics, as both intended to maintain separate programs, with Findlay competing at the NCAA Division II level and Bluffton remaining in Division III. But a statement from Findlay officials last week indicated that their efforts were hobbled by regulations that required a separate process for financial aid distribution and that “prohibit the sharing of resources and sports facilities, resulting in fewer synergies in those areas than originally anticipated.”

    Last year brought multiple mergers and other strategic partnerships for both public and private colleges, many driven by financial issues and the search for efficiency.

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