Naropa Sells Main Campus, Betting on Online Future

Naropa University, at a crossroads of financial challenges and new opportunities for online expansion, is selling its main campus in Boulder, Colo. Administrators say the move is necessary to invest in future growth, but many graduates are mourning the loss of a beloved site.

Naropa, which was founded in 1974 by Buddhists—whose influence still permeates the university—has faced a series of financial issues, including the expensive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and rising operating costs. The institution has lost money year over year for much of the last decade.

But the university has also made a strong post-pandemic push into online education. Officials have added new programs, such as psychedelic-assisted therapy, and enrollment has ticked up.

Now leaders plan to move operations to a smaller location roughly three miles away from the current campus, whose sale will come with an option to lease the site for one to eight more years.

With almost half of the roughly 1,100 students enrolled now studying online or in a hybrid format, Naropa administrators say their physical space needs have decreased. They believe the sale of the campus will help fund new growth initiatives that will secure the university’s future. At the same time, losing the campus means letting go of physical spaces that have deep meaning for graduates and the local community, such as the Allen Ginsberg Library, named for the beat poet who founded Naropa’s long-standing Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.

Challenges and Opportunities

Naropa president Charles Lief emphasized that the sale of campus is not a desperation play but rather an investment in the future of the institution.

“The sale of the [main] campus, which is complex, won’t start generating funds for two to three years or so, because there’s a complicated series of conditions involved,” Lief told Inside Higher Ed. “That sale has nothing to do with solving any urgent financial pressures. It’s to generate investment capital so we can invest in new programming, in faculty, in students, potentially in some new facilities.”

Like many saddened by the campus sale, Lief has deep ties to the university. He was a student of founder Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in the 1970s, then served as attorney for Naropa and later as chairman of the Board of Trustees before being appointed president in 2012. (His wife, Judith Lief, also served as Naropa’s president from 1980 to 1985.)

Lief acknowledged that Naropa “came out of COVID strapped for cash,” and, like many institutions, saw its enrollment decline during the pandemic. But the forced pivot to online instruction revealed an opportunity for expansion, judging from positive student feedback and inquiries to the admissions office about online offerings, Lief said.

Naropa leaned into the online space, beefing up its offerings. And a student head count that hovered in the 900s for much of the last decade climbed to about 1,100 last year, as well as for this fall’s incoming class.

Staff and faculty needs also changed as employees embraced remote work.

“As we assessed that job by job, we had a whole bunch of people who no longer needed offices here, so we just simply had more buildings than we needed to own,” Lief said.

While he disputes the notion that Naropa had to sell its main campus to stave off disaster, publicly available financial documents show the extent to which the university has struggled in recent years.

Naropa, which has an endowment of roughly $4.6 million (much of it restricted), operated at a loss in eight of the last 10 available fiscal years; a recent audit suggested “substantial doubt” about Naropa’s ability to remain open. But the audit also pointed to a number of moves the university has made to cut costs and raise money, including selling some buildings. Federal grants and Employee Retention tax credits have also helped boost the bottom line.

With the sale of the main campus now under contract—details on the buyer will likely be released within a month or so—Lief said the university can “invest in a Naropa future that’s not tied to the kind of economic pressures that a lot of other schools are experiencing.”

Graduates’ Angst

When officials announced the decision to sell off the campus earlier this month, many alumni (or alumnx, as Naropa calls its graduates) expressed shock, anger and disappointment, even as some acknowledged the university’s perilous financial situation.

Keren Shemesh, who earned a psychology degree at Naropa in 2004 and now works as a clinical psychologist, has mixed feelings about the move. While she believes the growth of remote learning will allow Naropa to extend its influence to more people, she has fond memories of beginning and ending classes with meditation, communal yoga and other activities. She also worries that the “spiritual lineage” carried by faculty members will be lost.

“Expanding Naropa education virtually will allow Naropa as a business to reach out to more customers,” Shemesh wrote by email. “It will also inspire more spiritual seekers around the world. We are living through very critical times on the planet when there is an increase in suffering, Buddhist practices teach people a great deal of how to manage suffering, it provides practical coping tools (that are used in cognitive Behavioral Therapy), and emphasizes the need to help others.”

The Reverend Diana McLean, a Unitarian Universalist minister who earned a master of fine arts in creative writing at Naropa in 2009 and later worked as an administrator in the Jack Kerouac School, described the sale of the university’s main site as “heartbreaking.”

She pointed specifically to the loss of Naropa’s Performing Arts Center and the Ginsberg Library, citing the “lineage of writers who had been there in years past.”

“I believe that some spaces are made sacred not by religious affiliation but by what happens there,” McLean wrote by email. “Places either I or my Naropa classmates have described that way include PAC, the sycamore tree [outside the Allen Ginsberg Library], the tea house, the print shop, and more. For me, the PAC stage is the most sacred place on campus.”

McLean hopes that Naropa students and alumni will have a chance to grieve for the beloved facility, perhaps through “a special event in PAC for all students and alumni, where we have a chance to be in the space again, to walk on the stage again, before it is gone.”

Dollars and Sense

Selling off assets is hardly a new move for financially distressed colleges. Some have sold off large chunks of land to generate revenue; others have deliberately reduced campus footprints amid enrollment declines to save money on maintenance needs and other costs.

And when colleges close, campuses are often sold (or seized) to pay down remaining debt. Naropa, however, is in the unusual position of selling its main campus while remaining open for business.

Mark DeFusco, a senior consultant with Higher Ed Consolidation Solutions, told Inside Higher Ed that such strategies are uncommon but also hold potential benefits.

“Most colleges believe that their physical plant is a huge asset. And I’ve always thought it was a millstone around their necks,” DeFusco said. “It keeps them from being flexible, and it keeps them from moving into marketplaces that are easier to get to.”

DeFusco added that he likes Naropa’s proposal "generally, as a strategy" and being in high-priced Boulder makes the deal more lucrative.

But DeFusco also flagged concerns reflected in Naropa’s audit about its ability to remain open, including issues with cash flow. While he sees the sale of campus as a smart move, he wonders if it’s “too late.”

Lief, however, believes it’s the right moment for Naropa to sell the campus, just as it’s embracing online and hybrid learning and the growth potential those modalities offer.

The move may come as a shock to alumni, but it isn’t the first time Naropa has transformed itself, Lief added. The university was founded in an old bus depot and later headquartered above a downtown restaurant; it also held many classes in a local middle school gym before settling on the current campus.

The deal, which he said will likely take at least a year to close, is also structured in a way that will allow Naropa to lease the campus back for several years: The cost of the lease is less expensive over the first three years and then the rent will rise.

“We have the time and space to make the transition work well,” Lief said.

By intensifying its push into online learning and launching new programs, Naropa could attract 300 to 400 new students in the next few years, he noted, significantly changing its financial outlook.

“The Naropa future is forward-looking and pretty bright,” Lief said.