By Gary Nelson, The Republic | azcentral.com
Westminster College, one of five established liberal-arts schools that came to Mesa after the city launched a highly publicized recruiting drive, announced Tuesday it is closing its Mesa campus after only one year.
A news release from the college cited “less than expected enrollment and market demand” in Mesa.
Westminster agreed in early 2012 to set up shop in the city after Mesa spent several years soliciting proposals from more than 1,000 schools, mostly in the East and Midwest.
Westminister’s Mesa campus is in a retrofitted downtown court building called the Mesa Center for Higher Education. It shares the building with Wilkes University.
Westminster’s news released quoted college president George Forsythe as saying that since Westminster agreed to open in Mesa, “a number of wonderful colleges and universities have entered Mesa and the Valley of the Sun, and Westminster — as a small, private, non-profit institution — could only be so competitive and still fiscally responsible in this ever-developing, active market.”
Westminster is based in Fulton, Mo.. It was founded in 1851.
