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Lackawanna College and Peirce College plan to merge, pending regulatory approval.
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Ajay Suresh and TexasDex/Wikimedia Commons
Lackawanna College and Peirce College, two adult-oriented institutions in Pennsylvania, plan to join forces in a merger, the institutions announced Wednesday morning.
Separated by a little more than a two-hour drive, Lackawanna is located in Scranton and Peirce in Philadelphia. But both institutions have long focused on the adult learner population in a demographically challenged state. While Lackawanna is primarily a two-year college with limited bachelor’s degree options, Peirce offers a mix of two- and four-year degrees and several master’s programs and graduate certificates.
Now the two institutions are set to become one, an effort that must still be approved by their shared accreditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, as well as the Pennsylvania Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Education.
A Shared Mission and Future
Pennsylvania’s higher education sector has been hard hit by enrollment losses, job cuts and college closures in recent years. Even some of the state’s wealthiest institutions, such as Pennsylvania State University, have been forced to trim budgets amid a bleak demographic outlook. Already this year, Pittsburgh Technical College and University of the Arts have closed abruptly and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts announced it was ending its degree programs.
Amid the closures, leaders at Lackawanna and Peirce see an opportunity to grow together.
“This is a merger of opportunity and growth. It’s a positive story. It’s not about a ‘have-to,’ this is about ‘What if?’ and looking at our respective institutions and seeing opportunity at every level,” said Lackawanna president Jill Murray.
Though Murray and Peirce College President Mary Ellen Caro had met previously, merger discussions began after casual conversations at an Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania (AICUP) conference in March 2023, where the two presidents happened to sit next to one another. Initially, that connection sparked an articulation agreement between the two colleges, with a tuition discount and other perks for Lackawanna students who pursue master’s programs or graduate certificates at Peirce.
The two colleges also agreed to share professional development opportunities for employees.
“Both institutions have a history of partnering, whether that be corporate partners or other institutions, as a way of expanding portfolios,” Caro said. “So in that vein, Jill and I were discussing mutual opportunities that we might pursue, and it became clear that we shared common missions focused on expanding access and supporting students who wanted to improve their lives. And as we went through what possibilities there might be to partner, it became abundantly clear that we had a common foundation, and there might be something more to partnering.”
By June 2023, that connection led them to consider a merger. From there, each institution began a due diligence campaign, assessing the other’s strengths and weaknesses, and introducing governing board members and key personnel to one another.
On paper, Lackawanna appears to be the stronger institution, with an endowment valued at $10 million in fiscal year 2023, compared to $3.6 million for Peirce, according to the latest tax filings for both institutions. Enrollment has also been more stable at Lackawanna.
Peirce, the smaller of the two colleges, has seen enrollment dip in recent years. In the early 2010s, Peirce regularly enrolled more than 2,000 students, but that number has slipped almost every year since, falling to 856 students in fall 2022, according to the latest federal data.
Meanwhile, Lackawanna’s student body has grown over the last decade. Enrollment hovered around 1,500 in the early 2010s, but has increased in recent years; the latest federal data showed a headcount of 1,868 in fall 2022.
If the merger is approved, the two colleges will bear the Lackawanna name.
Merger Outlook
While more than a dozen U.S. colleges have announced closures this year, noticeably fewer have merged. Other recent merger announcements include St. Ambrose University and Mount Mercy University; California State University Maritime Academy and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo; and Northeastern University and Marymount Manhattan College.
Despite the infrequency of mergers compared to closures, college business officers indicated a strong appetite for such partnerships in the latest Inside Higher Ed Survey of College and University Chief Business Officers. Nearly 40 percent of CBOs responded that their institutions should combine academic programs with another college, and another 59 percent said they should share administrative functions, though only 16 percent indicated the belief that they should merge with another institution in the next five years.
However, respondents indicated little movement in that direction. Only 10 percent of CBOs said they’ve had serious internal discussions about a merger, a number that rose to 23 percent in the demographically challenged Northeast region.
Mark La Branche, chancellor emeritus of the University of Tennessee Southern and editor of the book Inside College Mergers: Stories from the Front Lines, noted that colleges often make the mistake of waiting too long to pursue a merger, neglecting to seek a partnership until they’re at the point of desperation.
“The time to think about merging in order to enhance or expand or preserve your mission is not when you have to do it; it’s when you still have something valuable to offer,” La Branche said.
He gives credit to colleges that seek merger partners while still in a position of viability. He believes the loss of identity, such as surrendering an institution’s name, is often a barrier to mergers.
La Branche was at the helm of Martin Methodist College when the University of Tennessee acquired the institution in 2021, adding it to the state system. While La Branche acknowledged that being absorbed was painful, he pointed to benefits such as preserving and expanding the institution’s mission in rural Tennessee, where better-resourced UT was able to serve a larger population of students.
Despite the challenges of such partnerships, La Branche believes more mergers lie ahead, largely because of the challenging business environment for higher education. He said trustees need to be more engaged in the institutions’ operations and college leaders should be more transparent about their financial challenges in order to understand their own fate and when it’s time to take action.
“Make sure that people understand what’s at stake and what the challenges are going forward,” La Branche advised.
In Pennsylvania, having completed the due diligence work over the last year, Murray and Caro are looking ahead to a future as a shared institution, regardless of the various bureaucratic obstacles that may crop up along the way. Pending approvals, the two colleges will officially become one in July 2026.
