Philadelphia’s University of the Arts Abruptly Closes: ‘We Could Not Ultimately Identify a Viable Path’

Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, a school that dates back more than a century, abruptly announced its permanent shuttering last Friday, leaving the future of current students there uncertain.

The University of the Arts, or UArts as it is known for short, was founded in 1876, and has been considered one of the top art schools in Philadelphia. Its alumni include Harlem Renaissance sculptor Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Precisionist painter Charles Sheeler, photographer Irving Penn, video artist Cecelia Condit, filmmaker and sculptor Alex Da Corte, painter and sculptor Jonathan Lyndon Chase, and artist and photography historian Deborah Willis.

On May 31, the university wrote in a statement that it had lost accreditation with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and that it would not offer classes in the fall. It promised to offer students a “pathway” to other local schools, including Temple University, Drexel University, and Moore College of Art and Design.

Then, on June 2, the school announced that trustees had approved the closure the day before and that the shuttering would be permanent.

“Under extraordinary circumstances, we diligently assessed the urgent crisis presented and pathways to keep the institution open,” the school wrote. “Despite our best efforts, we could not ultimately identify a viable path for the institution to remain open and in the service of its mission. With the priority of addressing the impact that our decision will have on the UArts community, as well as our home in the City of Philadelphia, we are committed to supporting our students, faculty, and staff through this heartbreaking transition.”

The school said the swift closure had arisen from its financial situation: “with a cash position that has steadily weakened, we could not cover significant, unanticipated expenses. The situation came to light very suddenly.”

It is the second major Philadelphia art school to shutter this year, after the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, which said it would close its college following the 2024–25 school year. That art school, like UArts, is more than a century old. (Previously, UArts had also offered its services to outgoing students from PAFA.)

Other longstanding US art schools have shuttered as well in the past few years. The San Francisco Art Institute, one of the nation’s oldest and most highly esteemed art schools, officially shuttered in 2022.

Meanwhile, the Art Institutes, a for-profit organization that ran eight art schools nationwide, abruptly wound up operations in 2023. President Joe Biden recently said he would forgive $6.1 billion in debt for former students at those schools.

Over the weekend, the UArts closure gained negative attention on social media after many reposted a Reddit comment whose writer claimed to be a current student. That comment alleged that they had received a tuition bill not long before UArts’s closure was announced and said faculty and students were “blindsided” by the news.

“People should probably go to jail for this,” reads one tweet featuring a screenshot of that comment. The tweet currently has 31,000 likes.

A UArts spokesperson did not respond to request for comment regarding how and when students were notified of the closure, and whether tuition bills were sent prior to the announcement of the shuttering.

The statement about the shuttering says that UArts’s final day in operation will be this Friday.