When Emma Roach began attending Notre Dame College in South Euclid in fall 2023, she thought it would be her home for her entire college career. 

But Feb. 29, during her freshman year, Roach found out she would have to find a new home, as her college would be closing at the end of the spring 2024 semester. 

“I was disappointed, but it wasn’t a huge shock because we had been hearing rumors about it since Thanksgiving,” she said. “It hurt to find out.”

Roach, a business major, then had to come up with a plan B — and Kent State fit. Roach was familiar with the Kent area, with her sister and other friends already attending KSU.

“I know I’m [going to] have a lot of people to lean on, which is nice,” she said. “It feels like home.”

Notre Dame College, a private Catholic institution, cited declining enrollment, rising costs of operations and debt issues as reasons for its closing. The Sisters of Notre Dame had founded the school in 1922, according to the college’s website.

Roach said she enjoyed Notre Dame College because of how small it was. The school had an undergraduate enrollment of 1,376 students during the fall 2022 semester, as reported by U.S. News & World Report. 

“It’s definitely way smaller than Kent, which I love because you walk around and you see everybody,” she said. “It’s a very tight-knit community.”

As a member of the acrobatics and tumbling team, Roach also cited the college’s high percentage of student athletes as a positive. According to its website, 52% of Notre Dame College students are athletes.

Notre Dame College partnered with surrounding universities as part of a “Teach-Out” program, which allows Notre Dame College students to automatically transfer provided they have good academic standing.

As of April, the Teach-Out partner universities include:

• Albion College
• Ashland University
• Baldwin Wallace University
• Cleveland State University
• Gannon University
• Hiram College
• Indiana Wesleyan University
• John Carroll University
• Kent State University
• Lake Erie College
• Mercyhurst University

Normally, students looking to transfer to Kent State must fill out a transfer application, pay the $50 application fee, attend an institution of higher education after high school and have a 2.0 GPA of a 4.0 scale.

Students must also submit transcripts from their previous institution as well as a high school transcript if they have earned less than 12 credit hours.

Notre Dame students transferring to the university do not have to pay the application fee, according to Kent State’s Transfer Enrollment Specialist Jonathan Gates.

“We did waive their application fees so that they could get a complete understanding of what it would be to transfer to Kent State without paying any money upfront,” he said.

According to the university’s institutional research website, Kent State received 1,959 transfer applications for the 2023-2024 academic year, accepting 1,604 or 81.9% of applicants. Only 792 or 40.4% of the original applicants enrolled at KSU.

Gates said the number of Notre Dame College students transferring to Kent State is unknown due to the transfer application window remaining open.

“We’re really able to keep processing applications for the fall semesters through August,” he said. “A lot of students don’t make the decision to transfer until the summer months.”

Gates described the closure of Notre Dame College as “heartbreaking” for its students and faculty.

“It’s incredibly heartbreaking for students that made the college decision to go somewhere and not being able to finish their program,” he said. “A lot of professors and other staff members are going to be losing their positions over this.”

The biggest concern many Notre Dame College students have about transferring, according to Gates, is Kent State’s enrollment size, since the transfer students are accustomed to a smaller, private institution rather than a large public university. 

Kent State’s undergraduate enrollment in the fall 2023 semester was 25,283 on the main campus, as reported by the university.

“There’s other private smaller institutions that they might be looking for in the area,” he said. “We’ve been really open to hosting them on campus and just showing them how much Kent State and a bigger school has to offer.”

Michael Neenan is a beat reporter. Contact him at [email protected].