Guilford College Raised $6 Million. It May Not Be Enough.

Throughout Guilford College’s community forum last Wednesday, nearly 200 faculty, staff, students, and alumni seemed celebratory.

“I love to see the ‘72s,” one alumna said, referring to her graduation year as the crowd joined the call, which was held on Zoom. “This sounds so much like the Guilford I believe in,” another said in response to a presentation from an art professor. 

The ebullient mood stemmed from acting President Jean Parvin Bordewich’s announcement earlier in the week that Guilford had exceeded its goal of raising $5 million by the end of June, one of three prongs of its “For the Good of Guilford” campaign, launched in March. 

At the forum, Bordewich revealed that the school had raised just over $6 million and more than doubled the number of donors from the previous year, from 900 to 2,021. The school also surpassed its goal of cutting its budget by $3 million. Communications director Robert Bell told The Assembly that Guilford reduced its 2025 fiscal year expenses by $4.1 million, compared to the prior year.

“I’m extremely excited and optimistic,” Bordewich told The Assembly ahead of the forum. “I realized that we have a much wider, deeper, and broader base of people who care about Guilford than I knew going into this. So that really gives me a lot of hope for the future.”

But the college hasn’t achieved its third goal, which was generating $3 million in new revenue. “Asset monetization often takes time, and efforts underway have not yet produced revenue,” Bell said. 

The college also expects that tuition revenue for the coming school year will be lower than last. 

Bordewich and other school leaders acknowledge that further changes are necessary to ensure Guilford’s survival. 

As The Assembly reported in May, Guilford’s accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), placed the school on probation in December 2023 for financial reasons. It tasked Guilford with balancing its budget and reiterated the need when it extended Guilford’s probation last year. SACSCOC meets again in December, when it will either restore the school to good standing or revoke its accreditation. Guilford would have the right to appeal if it loses accreditation.

The school has technically defaulted on two outstanding bond agreements, which require Guilford to maintain net operating revenues at least 1.25 times higher than its annual debt service payments. In 2023, the school dropped below that threshold and didn’t hire a financial consultant as required.

The school retained a financial consultant after missing the threshold again in 2024, and the consultant ordered Guilford to maintain a budget that meets those debt service requirements for next year. In response to an audience question at the forum, acting Chief Operating Officer Keith Millner said Guilford currently is not in compliance.

“On our current trajectory, in terms of our operating income projections, we will be close by the end of the calendar year, when they measure it,” Millner added.

The biggest problem is that Guilford is projecting student revenue—its largest source of income—to fall by $3.5 million this academic year, due to declining enrollment. Bordewich said the school would have around 950 students this fall, down from 1,200 last year.

Last month, Guilford sold the development rights to a large section of its undeveloped campus to the Piedmont Land Conservancy. Many in the Guilford community long balked at selling land, given its historic ties to the Underground Railroad, so a deal with the Piedmont Land Conservancy could provide financial relief while ensuring its preservation.

The deal could net the school $8.5 million—but only after the conservancy has raised the money, which is expected to take more than two years.

Millner said the school still has $1.3 million in outstanding accounts payable, with “under 30 percent” of it more than 90 days late.

“That may not sound great, but in January that number was 68 percent,” with $2.5 million outstanding, Millner said.

Guilford has already made significant reductions to its expenses. It renegotiated many vendor contracts and is consolidating into fewer buildings for the upcoming year. Most significantly, the school cut more than a quarter of its workforce, from 357 employees at the start of last fiscal year to 255 in July, saving Guilford $4.5 million compared to its original budget for this fiscal year, Bordewich said in a community message on July 7. The departures include faculty and staff, and the university is also exploring salary reductions for faculty.

Fewer than 12 of those employees, all staff, were laid off. The rest of the reductions came from not filling vacant positions, early retirements, and voluntary exits, Bordewich said.

The approach is indicative of how Bordewich has tried to thread a narrow path between Guilford’s financial realities and its Quaker values. 

Unlike many schools—and former Guilford leaders—Bordewich has insisted Guilford will not cut departments or majors to save money. Instead, the school is rolling out a new “academic center model,” pairing departments to spur collaboration. The model dovetails with a less hierarchical structure that many faculty, staff, and alumni have advocated to build Quaker-inspired collective decision-making into Guilford’s operations.

At the community forum, interim Provost Kami Rowan said the current plan was a “living document” and that academic centers will ensure departments are evaluated holistically.

“Instead of us talking about, ‘Well, this major only has three majors in it,’ it’s, ‘Well, this major that has three majors is in a center with 200 and some majors,” she said. “It’s moving from talking about something as being diminished to talking about it in a more cohesive manner.”

The approach has largely won the support of the Guilford community and provided a long-term vision. The Guilford of the future will also try to recruit more out-of-state students, who currently make up about 25 percent of the student body, Bordewich said.

But that still leaves Guilford with short-term challenges.

“We’ve got to do more to balance the budget, so that’s what we’re focused on now,” Bordewich told The Assembly. 

“People feel encouraged that Guilford is on the rise, that we’re going to be here, and that we are capable of doing some interesting things,” she said.

At the forum, that spirit shined through.

Next year will “feel different because we have a smaller faculty, smaller staff,” Rowan said. But she also said some of the changes, like a revamped student center, will create excitement on campus. “We’re fighting hard as a community for these visions and the hopes, and I feel like there is energy even though it’s been a difficult summer.”