The board of trustees at Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, Ill., announced Nov. 4 that the school will close at the end of this academic school year. The final convocation for the 66-year-old school will be May 8, 2026.
Board chair Ken Dryfhout and acting university president Jeanine Mozie, in a joint video message, relayed the news that they called “difficult to hear and to share.”
“The board has worked faithfully and tirelessly to consider every possible option in the face of significant and rapidly evolving financial challenges,” Mozie said. “However, there is no sustainable path forward for our beloved institution.” She said the school’s “top priority in this transition is the wellbeing of our people,” and she laid out leadership’s “plans to ensure every student has a path toward graduating from Trinity this spring or completing their degree at another school.”
Students within reach of the credits they need to graduate can take an overload of classes in the spring semester, and Trinity has and is pursuing teach-out agreements with as many similarly equipped schools as possible so students have options.
“Trinity Christian College has been a mission-driven institution since our founding in 1959. We’ve remained committed to the transformational work of a Christian liberal arts education in the Reformed tradition and a whole-person development of our students as thinking, feeling, and believing people, and now we’re called to end well,” Mozie said.
Trinity employs 180 faculty and staff and has a current student body of about 750, 225 of whom are expected to graduate in May. The school’s ties to the Christian Reformed Church include having hosted the CRC synod, being a frequent host for tri-classis meetings in the Chicagoland area, graduating multiple alumni, and having in common as a senior leader Steve Timmermans, who came to the CRC as executive director in 2014, after serving 10 years as Trinity’s president.
Students in good academic standing who choose to continue at a partnered teach-out school “are guaranteed automatic admission and credit transfers.” Calvin University, Olivet Nazarene University, and St. Xavier University had teach-out partnerships with Trinity at the time of the announcement, and Mozie told The Banner they “will continue to add more teach-out partners in the weeks to come.”
‘Above and beyond’ in support of students
Accredited colleges in the United States—Trinity is accredited through the Higher Learning Commission—have to meet certain obligations to students in the event of “substantive change” to their programming, up to and including ceasing operations. Mozie said the commission “is responsible for approving all teach-out agreements to ensure that students are well cared for through institutional closure.” In the case of Calvin, Olivet, and St. Xavier, Mozie said, “Each of these institutions agreed to the requirements of the HLC and went above and beyond those requirements in support of our students.”
“The agreement is entirely about providing teach-out pathways for students to complete programs on time and with similar costs at Calvin, given our strong missional and educational alignment (with Trinity),” said Laura DeHaan, Calvin’s dean of curriculum and assessment. “In all of this, we are focused on serving and caring for students well during and after their transition.”
Calvin will also serve as the primary record holder for Trinity Christian College upon closure. Mozie said, “With our shared history and roots in the Reformed tradition and the Christian Reformed Church, Calvin University has long been an important partner and friend. Calvin has offered to come alongside the college during this transition in support of our students, faculty, and staff—both as a teach-out partner and as a primary record holder for our students in the future.”
DeHaan said Calvin has experience supporting students of a couple other closed institutions. It served as the primary teach-out institution for the Compass College of Film and Media, a Grand Rapids school that closed in 2023. “More recently, we welcomed transfer students from Siena Heights University and Finlandia University after their closures. These experiences give us the expertise and systems needed to support Trinity students effectively,” DeHaan said.
Challenges in higher ed
Calvin, Trinity, and Olivet are all members of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, an association for higher education “dedicated to advancing faith and intellect for the common good.” CCCU president David Hoag acknowledged that “higher education in general is challenging right now,” and the smaller a school gets, whether Christian or not, the more difficult it becomes to be sustainable. In an effort to triage a situation before it’s dire, the Council has recently begun to offer a Sustainability Index check and conversation with school presidents and board chairs to “see how they are doing health-wise” and how interventions might improve their prospects. It’s almost like a blood test for cholesterol, Hoag said, resulting in a range to indicate how at risk or healthy an institution might be.
For example, geography matters, Hoag said. Having worked in Christian higher education his whole career, 20 years in Illinois and more recently in Florida, state regulations and how and when funding is paid out can be a contributing factor to making things work financially.
Hoag suggests the index can identify areas of concern and then the CCCU can encourage solutions, like “finding other schools to partner with collaboratively” including possibly sharing an online learning platform or other tools to cut costs but continue in their mission to students. “We’re doing everything we can to come alongside schools and support them in their calling,” Hoag said.
About the Author
Alissa Vernon is the news editor for The Banner.