The Board of Trustees at The King’s College Announces New Strategic Changes

Interim President Stockwell Day, working in conjunction with the Board of Trustees, announced new strategic changes to help The King’s College meet the challenges of the current environment of Christian higher education. The Board of Trustees believes that these strategic and timely changes will help preserve The King’s College and its mission, positioning it for a strong future.

In these changes, the Board of Trustees is focused on rightsizing the College. Distinct from downsizing, which is an overall reduction to cut costs, rightsizing is the process by which an organization adjusts goals, shifts resources, and limits or in some cases, phases out certain services to best meet the present demand.

At the heart of this rightsizing for King’s is a shift in the growth strategy. Living up to our desired position as a Christian honors college, King’s will focus on carefully selected enrollment goals with an aspirational capped student body size. This includes limiting enrollment, efficiently optimizing the number of faculty, readjusting tuition to reflect the actual cost of educating a King’s student, and reducing the campus footprint. The College will enact this plan through the following changes:

• Starting with new Fall 2023 students, King’s will limit our enrollment of incoming students to eventually produce a total population of about 385 students. This size allows the College to become increasingly selective and more operationally efficient as it recovers from COVID-19-era enrollment declines.
• Following a heartfelt but analytical process, we will reduce the number of our full-time faculty from 28 to 23, clearly focused on anticipated future teaching needs. Adjunct teaching needs will continue to be evaluated semester by semester. We are immensely grateful for the work of our beloved faculty.
• Our tuition will be readjusted to $35,000 for incoming domestic students. This will not affect the cost for current students. Although our tuition reset earlier this year attracted some new and renewed interest from prospective students, it also obscured the true cost and value of a King’s education. As a result, we are moving to align our tuition with our actual cost.
• With the smaller student body, we will adjust the size of our physical campus accordingly. Our present space is intended for 750 students. In 2024, we will be reducing our space to accommodate this new strategic vision. The Board recently completed negotiations on a 12-year lease with the building, and that commitment to the Financial District and NYC remains the same. NYC is a critical part of the mission of King’s, to which we remain wholeheartedly committed.
• We remain committed to academic excellence, our curated programs, and the Politics, Philosophy, and Economics core curriculum. We will continue to offer all current majors, minors, and the major concentrations that have attracted substantial student interest over the years. Changes to the curriculum will follow normal faculty procedures.
• Of the special academic programs, Summer Academy and NYC Semester will continue as usual. We will discontinue recruiting new students for King’s Crossover, which has attracted very few students. Programs like debate and Interregnum will continue. The College plans to continue with all of its current majors and minors.

The Board of Trustees remains fully committed to our mission, Christ-centered, biblically-based principles, the PPE Curriculum, the City, and the community that is The King’s College. By making these changes now, the Board of Trustees believes that this rightsizing will help the College weather the current storms and begin to move strategically forward.

The King’s College is grateful for the privilege of preparing students for principled leadership through God’s provision and the needful generosity of donors. While making strategic changes like this is never easy, the leadership of The King’s College believes that the future is bright for current and prospective King’s students.