San Antonio’s Our Lady of the Lake slashes staff and programs to deal with budget issues

San Antonio’s Our Lady of the Lake University (OLLU) has become latest liberal arts campus to cut programs and jobs as its grapples with a changing higher-ed landscape.

After a two-year evaluation, OLLU’s Board of Trustees will shrink the school’s academic offerings and slash part-time and full-time positions in response to budget deficits and students’ changing academic interests, the school said in a statement on its website.

“These steps will help ensure that OLLU continues its 130-year mission to advance the principles set forth by the Sisters of the Congregation of Divine Providence,” the message states.

TV station KSAT was first to report on the changes at the West Side university.

Some student services, campus operations and the “distribution of resources across departments” also could be affected by the downsizing, OLLU officials said in their statement. However, the university, which has a little more than 2,000 students, didn’t provide details on what exact cuts it’s making or when students will see them.

Despite the financial difficulties, OLLU said its annual tuition, currently around $30,000, isn’t expected to increase.

OLLU is only the latest university to face recent financial hurdles. At least 73 public or nonprofit private colleges have closed or merged since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to higher-ed information website BestColleges.

Declining enrollment and higher operating costs are the key contributors to the closures, according to experts. Most of the shuttered campuses have been in the Rust Belt and Northeast, according to BestColleges.

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This article appears in Feb 5-18, 2025.