Lincoln College – the only university named after the 16th U.S. president while he was still alive – is slated to close next month.
Months after a record-breaking number of students enrolled in the private central Illinois school the fall of 2019, COVID wiped out those gains, says President David Gerlach.
"The campus I inherited had been operating in deficit operations, and we saw profitability coming by next fall 2022. But COVID flattened our enrollment. These students that we attract stopped going," Gerlach said.
He says that was compounded by a hack in December, which forced the predominantly black school to delay the spring semester by a week. Gerlach says the two-year school that was founded by friends of the late president just doesn’t have deep-pocketed alumni to keep it going.
The school is working to help students transfer their credits to other institutions.