This weekend’s graduation ceremony will be Limestone University’s last.
Limestone announced late Tuesday that it will permanently close at the end of this semester after raising only a third of the money it said it needed to stay operational. The university, burdened by debt and facing declining enrollment, sounded the alarm on its financial troubles two weeks ago when it made a public plea for $6 million in donations, saying classes would have to move online or cease entirely if the target was not met.
The board of trustees voted Tuesday to pursue the latter option.
“Words cannot fully express the sorrow we feel in having to share this news,” Nathan B. Copeland, Limestone’s president, said in the university’s announcement. “Our students, alumni, faculty, staff, and supporters fought tirelessly to save this historic institution. While the outcome is not what we hoped for, we are forever grateful for the passion, loyalty, and prayers of our Saints family.”
The university had been “cautiously optimistic” about its prospects of remaining open about a week into its fund-raising campaign. On April 22, it said it received a “potential financial lifeline”; then, on April 24, it launched a fund-raising campaign that quickly resulted in a $1-million donation. In total, Limestone gathered about $2 million from 200 donors in the past two weeks, it said in the statement announcing the closure.
But that wasn’t enough to keep the university open.
The campus, in Gaffney, South Carolina, was founded in 1845 and serves about 1,600 students, more than half of whom are athletes. Students, staff, and faculty alike are now searching for new homes.
For Carolyn Ford, a professor of art at Limestone, the decision to close came as a surprise. She worked at the university for 22 years, during which she said finances were “up and down,” but messaging from the university had remained positive. She remembers celebrating that the university met its March fund-raising goals. Even when the university went silent on finances, she said, “if you don’t hear stuff, you think everything’s hunky-dory.”
Now, Ford is beginning her job search. But first, she’s holding special events to say goodbye to her students and the campus — including a limited-time-only pottery-throwing session and a group trip to a lacrosse game.
“It’s the tiny little schools,” Ford said. “They just become family.”
Limestone is a major economic force in Gaffney, Ford added, with an estimated $150-million annual impact on Cherokee County’s economy.
The South Carolina Commission on Higher Education, which establishes policies for the state’s colleges and universities, said Limestone’s closure is a “deep loss” for the state.
“This is the first closure of this magnitude in our state,” a commission spokesperson wrote in an email, “but our agency is prepared and working proactively to fulfill our responsibilities in the interest of students and former students.”
Limestone had suffered from crushing debt and declining enrollment.
In 2018, the university took out a $34.5-million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture as part of a program that helps rural colleges to upgrade facilities. But such loans are in fact measures of last resort for many participating colleges, a 2024 Chronicle investigation found, and can saddle struggling institutions with debt that does little or nothing to reverse their fortunes.
In 2015, Limestone had about 2,300 students; by 2023, it had roughly 1,300. That year, facing a dismal financial picture, the university took the unusual step of acting to free up about $8.4 million from its endowment.
The university did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
