Saturday’s Baltimore Sun featured a front-page article about the ongoing financial and enrollment issues facing the college. The article, written by staff writer Jean Marbella, may be found here:
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Michael H C McDowell says
FULL TEXT Washington College faces financial woes, presidential turnover at critical time
Story by Jean Marbella, Baltimore Sun
Washington College could perhaps use its namesake’s 50 guinea coins these days.
The 243-year-old institution in Chestertown on the Eastern Shore, whose early donors and board members included the future first U.S. president, has seen enrollment tumble, its budget run into deficit, and five presidents or interim presidents come and gone in the past 10 years, the most recent leaving last month.
College officials said its budget faced structural issues as a result of declining enrollments — it had 923 students last year compared with 1,515 in 2011 — without a comparable drop in its largest expense, salaries and compensation.
“We made some tough decisions,” said Rick Wheeler, chairman of the school’s Board of Visitors and Governors, “some right-sizing decisions.”
The school shed nearly 40 staff positions through measures like early retirement and position eliminations. Officials said they did not let any tenured or tenure-track professors go, instead targeting visiting professors and other staff, furloughed the highest-paid employees for two weeks and cut the cabinet’s salaries by 7%. Sosulski, who had been president for four years, said in one of a series of budget updates to staff that he took a furlough and a 20% pay cut. The latest 990s tax filing shows his salary was $441,251 and $68,560 in other compensation in 2024.
Washington College could perhaps use its namesake’s 50 guinea coins these days.
The 243-year-old institution in Chestertown on the Eastern Shore, whose early donors and board members included the future first U.S. president, has seen enrollment tumble, its budget run into deficit, and five presidents or interim presidents come and gone in the past 10 years, the most recent leaving last month.
College officials said its budget faced structural issues as a result of declining enrollments — it had 923 students last year compared with 1,515 in 2011 — without a comparable drop in its largest expense, salaries and compensation.
“We made some tough decisions,” said Rick Wheeler, chairman of the school’s Board of Visitors and Governors, “some right-sizing decisions.”
The school shed nearly 40 staff positions through measures like early retirement and position eliminations. Officials said they did not let any tenured or tenure-track professors go, instead targeting visiting professors and other staff, furloughed the highest-paid employees for two weeks and cut the cabinet’s salaries by 7%. Sosulski, who had been president for four years, said in one of a series of budget updates to staff that he took a furlough and a 20% pay cut. The latest 990s tax filing shows his salary was $441,251 and $68,560 in other compensation in 2024.
The paring of expenses and a lean, zero-based budget going forward should serve the school well, said Mark “Bo” Connell, vice president for finance and administration.
“If we manage the budget this year, we will be on a more stable footing in the years ahead,” he said.
Fears for the future
Critics like Middleton paint a much grimmer vision. Raised in Kent County and now living in North Carolina, the retired businessman and investor said the college has been running annual deficits for years — which the college denies — and he fears for its future.
“The reason I’ve been doing this is to save the school,” he said. “This is my hometown.”
College officials say it has had total operating deficits in two of the past ten fiscal years. But they acknowledge that they’ve had to take steps like drawing more from the endowment than the 5% considered the best practice. The current budget calls for an 8% draw.
In the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2024, for example, operating expenses outstripped non-restricted revenues by nearly $20.7 million. The college took measures like transferring funds and borrowing from the endowment to help plug the hole.
But, Connell said, “you can’t do that every year.”
College faces headwinds
Small liberal arts colleges were particularly hit hard by the COVID pandemic because the on-campus experience is central to their appeal, as well as longer-ranging trends such as the declining birthrate, experts said.
“If you serve 18-year-olds, that pipeline is getting narrower and narrower,” said Bryan Alexander, a senior scholar at Georgetown University and higher ed consultant.
There’s also a greater preference for more specific fields of study, such as technology and business, to secure a lucrative job immediately after graduation, he said. Liberal arts schools are unfairly perceived as not doing that, Alexander said, despite some studies showing their graduates’ paychecks can eventually match or even surpass those in other fields.
“Everyone wants the major that will get them a job in private equity,” Washington College emeritus board member John Moag said drily.
Moag, the former chairman of the Maryland Stadium Authority, graduated from the school in 1977 and went on to a distinguished career in law and investment banking.
“I had a fabulous education there,” he said. “We’ve just got to sell it better.”
He and others say the school is at a critical juncture as it searches for a new president who can navigate the current higher-ed climate.
Wheeler said the board will soon name an interim president and give itself up to two years to find the right leader.
Community concerns
In Chestertown and beyond, alumni and community residents are watching, protective of the college that looms large in the life of the town and county and engaged and opinionated about its every move.
“It’s like ‘Northern Exposure,’” Middleton said, referring to the 1990s-era TV series about a quirky small town.
Community members frequently use the campus, with members of the donor group, the 1782 Society, taking advantage of special access to events and the school’s library and fitness center. Its popular Academy of Lifelong Learning, known as WC-ALL, draws retirees and others with its offerings.
“Their campus is very open,” said Chris Cerino, a former Chestertown mayor. “They add a tremendous amount of complexity to the community.”
The school’s financial woes, its enrollment drops and the turnover in the president’s office are felt in town, said Cerino, the longtime vice president of the Sultana Education Foundation, which takes school children on learning experiences around the Chesapeake Bay on its reproduction 1768 schooner.
“In my seven years as mayor, I worked with five different presidents,” said Cerino, who left office in 2021. “It made it hard to plan anything with them. By the time you got to know them, they were gone.”
Michael H.C. McDowell, who lives in a historic home in Chestertown and is active in community issues, faults the college for not taking better advantage of its milieu.
The area is filled with high-powered professionals and retirees, he said, a group in which he might include himself as a fellow at the New America think tank with previous stints as a BBC journalist and manager at the World Bank. They could be a source of internships and job recommendations for students, he said, and an additional selling point for students to choose Washington College over a competitor.
But, McDowell said, the college has not been receptive to outside advice.
“This is a chronic missed opportunity, and it causes resentment among the retired community in Chestertown,” he said.
“I really want the college to succeed, but Sosulski didn’t listen to positive suggestions by me or others with college board experience,” said McDowell, who had served on an advisory board at his late son’s alma mater, The Citadel.
Looking to the future
Current and former professors who have been critical of Washington College’s management declined to comment on the record for fear that a public airing of the school’s problems could only add to them.
“We want students to come here,” one professor said.
Still, they said, the faculty has been pressing for more involvement in the college’s governance, which can be something of a “black box” for them. Faculty attempted to unionize a couple of years ago but the effort waned in the wake of President Trump’s election and firings at the National Labor Relations Board that have hampered the agency’s work.
After the faculty took its vote on Sosulski, the college’s board reiterated its support of him but “also acknowledged” what the staff was saying, Wheeler said. He said the school opened up its finance and budget committee to faculty representatives and sought to improve transparency.
Administrators and faculty say they are heartened by the slight uptick in enrollment between 2023 and 2024, and the more than 300 new students expected to enroll this year. With an alumna’s $15 million gift, the college launched a new business school.
Not all worries of recent years have been satisfied.
“How many business schools are out there?” one former professor said skeptically.
He and others pin their hopes on getting the right president, and someone who can navigate both the current challenges facing higher ed as well as the traditional give-and-take of a community of academics, alumni and other interested and opinionated parties.
“It’s been on the right path,” said one previously critical professor. “It’s a great place. It is a very close community.”
Have a news tip? Contact Jean Marbella at [email protected], 410-332-6060, or @jeanmarbella.bsky.social.
©2025 Baltimore Sun. Visit baltimoresun.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Deirdre LaMotte says
Michael, many thanks for reprinting this piece as many do not have a Baltimore Sun subscription.
I must say the quote that chilled me was:
Everyone wants the major that will get them a job in private equity,” Washington College emeritus board member John Moag said drily.
Bill Barron says
Sorry, but unless I’m doing something wrong, the Sun article is not accessible, to me at least, without a subscription.
James Dissette says
3-month subscription is $1, but the full text is in Comments.
Carla Massoni says
Does one require a subscription to the Baltimore Sun?
James Dissette says
3-month subscription is $1, but the full text is in Comments.
Marguerite Long says
It is in the Sunday edition of the Sun Newspaper, not Saturday.
Michael H C McDowell says
It was in the digital edition on Saturday too.
James Dissette says
Yes, and online Saturday.
WC Alumn '76 says
The problem with this article is that it singles out WC, as if it’s an anomaly. This is a reality for all small liberal arts colleges and is about to become more so as AI becomes an omnipresent threat in the job market. Had the article taken a more 100,000 foot view, using WC as a ‘canary in the coal mine’ example, I would have had more respect for the reporting.
That being said, the WC board better get their s**t together asap, re-tooling for the future of education in an AI driven world. And it ain’t goin to look like the traditional model old foggies wish it could be.
Radical redesign has to happen to prepare for the exponential disruption about to occur.