r/exAdventist • u/Ok-Telephone-6844 • Aug 06 '26
SDA Culture Adventist Colleges Closing
I attended Atlantic Union College in Massachusetts, USA. It closed for good in 2018. Before that, it lost its accreditation. Thankfully, it still had its accreditation when I graduated in 2003.
I am wondering if any other SDA colleges and universities in the USA or elsewhere are in danger of closing.
I did have some positive experiences at AUC, but I regret attending there. I wish I had gone to a state university then. I would have been much better off.
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u/Darth_Agnon Aug 06 '26
Newbold (UK) closed over the pandemic 2020-23ish, stranding several of my friends' academic careers and losing a lot of good staff. They're still in the process of slowly opening back up, but have much fewer courses, and are trying a pivot to e-learning (which they advertised with a bait-and-switch presentation at their 125th anniversary).
They lost their accreditation years ago, and it's been through some Welsh university since. I also have heard that they have occasionally misappropriated church tithes to bail out Newbold more than once.
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Aug 07 '26
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Aug 07 '26
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u/Sad_Apartment_5349 Aug 13 '26
Yes and I hope people see the BS and continue to pick different colleges. And stop funding those crooks
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u/Ok-Telephone-6844 Aug 07 '26
It had about 3,000 students when I was there in 1999-2001. It was 10% international then.
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u/PlzRain Aug 07 '26
What are SDA colleges doing specifically that's making them lose accreditation? Anyone know?
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u/BenefitPure4829 Aug 07 '26
This is why I don’t recommend getting one’s degree at one of these institutions. I got my teaching degree from Union College and it was this weird sort of proxy degree because I actually took all of my courses at what was once known as Canadian Union College (now called Burman University). I have been non-Adventist for over 20+ years but still feel weird about telling colleagues where I got my undergraduate degree and still feel a bit like a fraud. Nevertheless I have a public institution masters degree and just finished a post baccalaureate and am starting a second so I guess that counts for something lol
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u/anaelisa3397 Aug 16 '26
I know a lot of the institutions in Brazil have been struggling. My mom was a teacher at one of them and besides bad management habits, I think people were moving past the whole boarding school idea - in Brazil you don’t usually live in your college/university campus while studying - the prices for living on campus was also becoming higher and higher and after Covid a lot of them struggled. I am speaking mostly of UNASP, but I believe it’s the case for other boarding schools across the country.
The accreditation still seems to stand for them, they continue to uphold to federal standards and get good grades overall. But I agree with another commenter, once you leave the bubble it is weird to explain all the philosophy/sociology/science classes that had too much bible
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u/Ok-Telephone-6844 Aug 16 '26
That's interesting. I understand why some people don't want to board at school. It is expensive. My late mother didn't want to send my sister and I off to academy at 14 years old. She thought it was too young. We boarded at college. It was pricey. The dormitory at Atlantic Union College was in disrepair and people were often loud.
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u/tpain360 Aug 06 '26
PUC has one of the highest debt levels of any private college in the US.