The End for This Rochester College?

Just days before it was scheduled to start a new school year, Rochester’s Crossroads College has announced that it has cancelled classes for its 2016-2017 school year. The college made the announcement on Thursday, August 18. Citing an ongoing decline in enrollment, as well as rising financial difficulties, Crossroads decided to close its doors.

According to a statement on their website, several other Christian universities have offered to accept Crossroads student “at no additional cost to the student.” Crossroads was formerly known as the International Christian Bible College, and opened in Minneapolis in 1913 before moving its campus to Rochester in 1971. In 2002, the institution renamed itself Crossroads College.

As for what the long-term future holds for the college, that is still up in the air. For the past few years, Crossroads has been working on a merger with another Christian institution for higher education, Hope International University. That merger is still in the works.

The website also says there is a vision “to establish the Rochester Christian University Center,” which would include space for a residential Christian college as well as opportunities for other institutions to establish college-level programs in Rochester.

To that end, Crossroads will retain a few employees, to work on their anticipated transition, as well as to run other revenue-generating programs that take place on the campus. It remains to be seen if the college’s vision will come to fruition or if this is truly the end of the 103-year-old institution.