The demise of Limestone University happened so abruptly that even the dean of its College of Health Sciences had no idea how bad things were.
Suzanne Lindley had been in leadership for only a few months, winning a big promotion after spending more than two decades as a professor of biology. This past April, the university hosted admitted-students day. Lindley had started planning for the fall semester.
She knew about the enrollment declines, the draws from the endowment, the multimillion-dollar federal loan. But she thought the measures were temporary steps to help the Christian university steady itself.
When Limestone’s death notice came, just a week before its spring 2025 commencement ceremony, Lindley said she felt “blindsided.”
By some measures, Limestone’s end is surprising. Most colleges on the brink tend to be tiny and located in the Northeast or Midwest, where population declines are rapidly shrinking the pool of prospective students. Though down from its peak of over 3,000 students, this past academic year Limestone enrolled around 1,600 and had nearly 500 employees. It’s the largest-ever college to close in South Carolina, and among only a few to close in the South, the nation’s fastest-growing region.
In other ways, Limestone fits the profile of the dozen or so private nonprofit colleges that close each year. There was a parade of last resorts: heavily relying on sports to draw students, drastically discounting tuition, and regularly pleading for donations.
Letting go of a college often means losing the heartbeat of a town, a major employer and cultural center. Local residents and alumni retain strong emotional ties that make it hard to accept closure.
Driven by a desire to help a community that needs it, two groups have publicly expressed interest in reopening Limestone in the past two months. The path forward depends on an unusual suitor: the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s because the university owed $27 million on its $34.5-million loan from the USDA when it closed and had put up the campus as collateral.
So as most former Limestone students and staff members try to move on, others are still hoping for a miracle.
Driving through rural South Carolina on Interstate 85, it’s hard to miss the 135-foot peach-shaped water tower. The Peachoid, which somewhat resembles a body part more than a fruit, is a main draw for Gaffney, a small town of about 12,000 near the North Carolina border.
Limestone predated the unusual tourist attraction. It even predated Gaffney itself: The university was founded in 1847, and the town incorporated a decade later.
Even though Limestone was a private institution, there was a sense that it belonged to the town, said Allen Montgomery, a lifelong resident.
Montgomery grew up around the corner from the university. As a kid, he swam in Limestone’s YMCA pool and took field trips to campus as a reward for good behavior. Now, Montgomery serves on Gaffney’s City Council, where he said Limestone was often a consideration in local decision-making. Ideas for revitalizing the city’s historic downtown, for example, centered on attracting college students, he said.
In Gaffney, football is life. “If you’ve ever seen that movie, Friday Night Lights, that’s Gaffney,” Montgomery said. Residents pour into the bleachers on Friday nights to watch Gaffney High School’s football team, and when Limestone started a football program in 2014, that energy extended to the college. Sports, and particularly football, bound Gaffney and Limestone even more closely together in recent years, Montgomery said.
“We really embraced the college,” he said.
Sports at Limestone had existed since the 1970s, but they became a primary focus through the 1990s and 2000s — an effort driven by Walt Griffin, who became president in 1992, to reverse an enrollment slide. (Exact numbers are not publicly available for that year, but Lindley, the longtime professor of biology who recently became a dean, estimated that fewer than 300 students attended at the time.)
The college joined the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Division II in 1991, and in 2005, it upgraded athletic facilities, which were later named after Griffin. The men’s lacrosse team won five national championships between 2000 and 2016. At one point in the mid-2010s, Limestone offered 25 different sports.
Griffin was Limestone’s president for 25 years. By 2007, enrollment hit 3,913 students, and the college’s endowment had grown to $10 million. Lindley said she remembers throwing a party to celebrate. Enrollment peaked three years later at nearly 4,000 students.
“Having money in the bank with no debt, it’s a good feeling,” Lindley said.
In the context of the university’s 177-year history, the bottom fell out in the blink of an eye.
Between 2016 and 2020, Limestone lost about 1,000 students, or a third of its student body, and with them about $7 million in tuition revenue.
Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and the university lost 300 more students. Limestone, like many institutions, covered much of the budget gap with temporary government relief funds, according to an analysis by The Chronicle.
As enrollment started to plummet, Limestone took out the $34-million loan from the USDA — as part of a little-known program geared toward developing rural areas. The university signed onto the loan in 2018 and was supposed to repay it within 40 years. Administrators put up the campus as collateral.
A large portion of the loan went toward an $18-million library and student center, which opened to students in the fall of 2021. Limestone’s president at the time, Darrell Parker, said in a news release that the library would be a “game changer” in attracting and retaining students.
But a Chronicle investigation found that several colleges that had accepted USDA loans failed to stabilize in the long term. The loan provided Limestone a better interest rate than the rest of the market would but still didn’t guarantee its success, said Robert Kelchen, a professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
“The USDA has been a lender of last resort,” Kelchen said. “So in and of itself, that’s been an indicator that colleges are struggling.”
Limestone spent more than it made in fiscal years 2020-21 and 2021-22, finishing both years in a deficit.
Leadership turmoil didn’t help. In January 2023, Parker, then the president, announced that Limestone’s vice president for finance and administration, Reggie Browning, was no longer employed at the university. Parker himself resigned six days later. Monica Baloga, then-provost, succeeded Parker as interim president but resigned just seven months later. Neither Parker, Browning, nor Baloga responded to requests for comment.
Last year, the university was authorized by the state to withdraw $6 million from its endowment principal — money that’s usually kept untouched, except to collect interest. Auditors wrote in 2024 that there was “uncertainty regarding the university’s ability to continue” and “substantial doubt” that the university would be able to repay its debts.
On April 16, Limestone said it would need $6 million in donations immediately to keep operating. At the time, officials suggested that classes would continue online. Virtual students were given an April 18 deadline to pay for the summer term.
On April 22, a university news release touted that “a possible funding source has surfaced.”
Eight days later, the tune changed. Only about one-third of the necessary money had been raised. The Board of Trustees met in the new library as students and faculty gathered outside, awaiting a verdict. Around 10 p.m., the board voted to shutter Limestone completely.
Limestone’s president and board didn’t attend the final graduation ceremony. That’s because faculty members unanimously endorsed a resolution at their last meeting stating that campus leaders weren’t welcome.
Even if a college’s closure seems to make sense on paper, there’s never a right time.
Limestone’s shuttering affects thousands of people, said Jeffrey Perez, president and executive director of the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education.
“It’s a tragedy when a school closes down,” Perez said. “It’s a tragedy for the students. It’s a tragedy for the employees … and it’s also a tragedy for the city of Gaffney.”
Some institutions have drawn backlash for pulling the plug too quickly. Such was the case at Sweet Briar College, in Virginia: Alumni in 2015 won a lawsuit to keep the institution open after the trustees had said it would close, and it’s still enrolling students today.
At Limestone, some professors and students felt that the board’s decision came too late — after the hiring cycle for faculty members, and after most transfer applications were due for students.
Nearly 300 former students are still owed $381,000 in tuition they’d paid for forthcoming classes, according to data provided to the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education from the asset-management company responsible for winding down the university’s finances. University officials haven’t clarified the status of the donations received just before closure. The campaign raised $2.1 million; nearly half of the total was a commitment from a local family foundation.
For struggling institutions, deciding when to call it quits is somewhat of a Catch-22, said Gary Stocker, the founder of College Viability, an app that reviews and compares colleges’ financial health. If the public becomes aware of a college’s deteriorating finances, Stocker said, fewer students would attend, and the college would be doomed to fail. Short-notice closures have become more common in the past decade, he said.
Meanwhile, some Limestone affiliates feel that their university still has a chance.
In May, former students, parents, and staff created Saving Limestone Inc. They’re fund raising. They’ve got a lawyer. They’re working on a reopening plan — with a moonshot goal of welcoming a new class of Limestone students in the 2026-27 academic year.
While Sweet Briar’s circumstances were different, that resurrection “showed us what’s possible when a community refuses to give up on its school,” said Megan Dennehy, the group’s president.
With the U.S. Department of Agriculture now considering proposals for the campus, a private-equity firm called Quantum Foundry Capital threw its hat into the ring. Members told The Gaffney Ledger, the local newspaper, that its Limestone 2035 vision would create a STEM-focused institution with advanced research and development facilities.
Dennehy said Saving Limestone considered joining forces with the private-equity firm but decided not to. Her group is working on its own proposal for the USDA.
Those who got involved with Saving Limestone felt like the university’s administration didn’t do enough to engage alumni and community leaders when problems piled up, Dennehy said. (Multiple emails to remaining Limestone representatives went unanswered.) The students — including a large share of first-generation and veteran learners — and the town of Gaffney deserved better, she said.
“With other major employers already gone, losing Limestone would result in an estimated $150-million impact to the local economy,” Dennehy said. “That means fewer jobs, fewer opportunities, and fewer reasons for young people to stay and build their futures here.”
The USDA has not specified a timeline for deciding what to do with Limestone‘s campus.
The department “continues to actively engage with the university’s board and leadership to explore all available options to protect the federal investment and ensure the best possible outcome for the community and taxpayers,” an agency spokesperson wrote in an email.
A spokesperson for South Carolina’s higher-education commission declined to comment on the possibility of Limestone’s reopening, other than to note that any institution trying to reopen would need to go through a three-to-six-month process to obtain a new license.
Financial and logistical barriers still abound for Limestone: There are millions of dollars of debt beyond the USDA loan, widespread maintenance issues, and potentially an obligation to repay the endowment principal that was tapped last year.
That’s a big part of why reopening a shuttered college is so difficult, said Kelchen, the Tennessee professor. The other reason is accreditation, he said: Once colleges close and lose that status, access to federal financial aid is cut off, making it hard to attract students. (As of August 1, Limestone’s accreditation remains active with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.)
According to Limestone’s most recent financial statements, Kelchen said, the institution was running out of money fast and was unlikely to make payroll.
Limestone’s most recent students can’t wait for a possible miracle.
College viability is now top of mind for Kaden Kline. He had just finished his freshman year as a quarterback on Limestone’s football team when he learned the university would close. In May, as Kline weighed transfer offers, he said he was eager to match with an institution that had both a strong football program and stable finances.
“It’s definitely a curveball that I throw at some coaches,” he said. “We could just be having a good conversation. Then I’m like, ‘How’s the school’s financial health?’”
