• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
The Washington campus of The Catholic University of America is shown May 18, 2020. The university is looking at three proposed academic program changes, as the school begins to counter a $30 million budget deficit announced by president Peter Kilpatrick in December 2024. (OSV News photo/CNS file, Chaz Muth)

Catholic U., facing $30M deficit, considers ‘three main changes’ to academic operations

January 21, 2025
By Gina Christian
OSV News
Filed Under: Colleges, News, World News

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

The Catholic University of America in Washington will look into consolidating some academic departments, as part of a recently announced effort to address a $30 million budget deficit.

In a Jan. 17 email to the university community, Aaron Dominguez, the university’s executive vice president and provost, said that “three main changes” to academic operations have been proposed.

Affected areas of study include the performing arts, social service, nursing and art.

President Peter Kilpatrick wrote in a Dec. 6 email to alumni that the university had to seek “both budget cuts and revenue growth” to counter the deficit, citing a number of challenges in the nation’s higher education landscape.

Kilpatrick wrote that the university — which depends heavily on tuition revenue — would work to eliminate its “undue reliance on financial reserves and investment payouts to balance the budget.”

Among the headwinds cited by Kilpatrick in that email were rising costs, increased competition for students, the long-term impact of COVID, inflation and the “poorly redesigned” FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) form, which was plagued by technical glitches.

In a Dec. 18 follow-up email to the university community, the university’s board of trustees chair Robert Neal stressed that the challenges confronting the school are “significant but surmountable.”

Dominguez stressed in his email that “no structural changes will be implemented during the current academic year,” and that all of the university’s students “will be supported to complete their current undergraduate or graduate degrees in their majors.”

The proposed changes announced by Dominguez would relocate the music and drama departments of the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art to the university’s School of Arts and Sciences. The drama and art disciplines had been moved to the Rome School, originally a music school, in 2018.

The art department itself would be moved to the university’s School of Architecture and Planning.

Lastly, the university’s National Catholic School of Social Service and Conway School of Nursing would be brought together “into an expanded school housing both nursing and social work programs,” wrote Dominguez.

He noted that the “consultative phase” for the proposed changes will elicit input from the university’s deans, faculty, staff and students.

“Ultimately, many of the changes will require approval from the Board of Trustees,” Dominguez wrote.

He admitted that the “changes we hope to adopt will be difficult in some respects.”

However, he said, “we must adjust our current financial model to create a stronger and more sustainable organization that will allow Catholic University to navigate the increasingly dynamic and competitive landscape of Catholic higher education.”

The university is far from alone in its financial difficulties, with at least 16 U.S. nonprofit colleges and universities — many of them dependent on tuition, rather than endowments — shuttering in 2024. In 2023, at least 14 schools closed, with researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia projecting the trend to accelerate in the next five years.

In December, Federal Reserve scholars released a report on “Predicting College Closures and Financial Distress,” observing that long-term trends and the post-pandemic recovery have created “serious financial headwinds” for the nation’s postsecondary education sector.

Enrollment fell 15% from 2010 to 2021, and although the fall 2023 semester “saw the first across-the-board increase in enrollment in many years,” downturns in the overall number of graduating U.S. high school seniors — higher education’s anticipated “demographic cliff” — accounts for a “sizeable portion” of the waning enrollment trends, said the researchers.

In addition, said the Federal Reserve report, fewer high school graduates are enrolling in college upon graduation, with the rate sliding from 70 to 62 percent over the past decade.

“This decline, which also began before the pandemic, could reflect growing skepticism among the public about the value of higher education,” said the researchers.

Read More Colleges

Can’t afford a Catholic college? Think again. Many offer full tuition options

DUAL ENROLLMENT

Double the learning: Dual enrollment provides college credit to high school students

How faith-based higher education can best serve society is focus of symposium

Villanova athletes inspired that pope keeps tabs on how his alma mater’s teams fare

‘Change of era’ prompts Catholic University of America to launch new degrees in AI

Analysts: Trump’s action on Harvard, Columbia could have implications for religious groups

Copyright © 2025 OSV News

Print Print

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Primary Sidebar

Gina Christian

Click here to view all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

| MOST POPULAR |

  • Prince of Peace merges with St. Francis de Sales in Harford County

  • Detroit archbishop fires theologians Ralph Martin, Eduardo Echeverría from seminary

  • Archdiocese of Baltimore offers resources for parishes to assist migrants

  • Construction underway on new north addition to St. Joseph’s Nursing Home 

  • Warsaw archbishop ‘devastated, crushed’ by priest’s arrest in brutal murder of homeless man

| Latest Local News |

Radio Interview: The true story of ‘Xavier Rynne’

Archdiocese of Baltimore offers resources for parishes to assist migrants

Third annual gun buyback scheduled for Aug. 9

Driver arrested after crashing into entrance of Esperanza Center

Construction underway on new north addition to St. Joseph’s Nursing Home 

| Latest World News |

Massacre ‘of faithful in the house of God’ in Congolese Catholic church leaves 43 dead

Pope welcomes young people to Rome for jubilee, thanks media for promoting truth

Cardinal Tomasi: Religious communities can play key roles in nuclear disarmament

Warsaw archbishop ‘devastated, crushed’ by priest’s arrest in brutal murder of homeless man

Jubilee of Youth chance to celebrate hope, fraternity in world at war, panel says

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Radio Interview: The true story of ‘Xavier Rynne’
  • Massacre ‘of faithful in the house of God’ in Congolese Catholic church leaves 43 dead
  • Pope welcomes young people to Rome for jubilee, thanks media for promoting truth
  • Cardinal Tomasi: Religious communities can play key roles in nuclear disarmament
  • Warsaw archbishop ‘devastated, crushed’ by priest’s arrest in brutal murder of homeless man
  • Jubilee of Youth chance to celebrate hope, fraternity in world at war, panel says
  • New York archdiocese sees hundreds of responses to ‘Called By Name’ program
  • Can’t afford a Catholic college? Think again. Many offer full tuition options
  • Detroit archbishop fires theologians Ralph Martin, Eduardo Echeverría from seminary

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

en Englishes Spanish
en en