Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts to Shutter College in 2025

Philadelphia’s Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), the oldest art school and museum in the United States, will close its college in 2025. The museum will remain open. Additionally, the institution will bring back its three- and four-year certificate programs this fall. Officials cited an annual deficit of $3 million and a sharp decline in enrollment as behind the cessation of the degree program. Since its founding in 1805, the college has educated such luminaries as Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt, Ashcan School forebear Robert Henri, realist painter and illustrator Thomas Eakins (who would go on to serve as PAFA’s director), illustrator Maxfield Parrish, filmmaker David Lynch, and contemporary portraitist Barkley L. Hendricks, and contemporary painter Njideka Akunyili Crosby among many others.

As well, PAFA was among the first art schools in the world to welcome women, which it did in the mid-nineteenth century.RelatedINDIANA UNIVERSITY CANCELS MAJOR EXHIBITION OF PALESTINIAN ARTIST SAMIA HALABYWARHOL FOUNDATION ANNOUNCES FALL 2023 GRANT RECIPIENTS PAFA president Eric Pryor told thePhiladelphia Inquirerthat the board’s unanimous decision regarding the shutdown was “painful” but necessary and made only after thorough deliberation. “Just burying our heads in the sand and hoping that things would change I just think wasn’t an option,” he said. The closure of the college is expected to save PAFA roughly $1 million; leadership hopes that funds gained from renting out the college’s home, the Hamilton Building, will close the remaining $2 million budget gap, with PAFA board chair Anne McCollum telling theInquirerthat the museum aimed to be operating in the black by 2028. The college lost about 50 percent of its students between 2019 and 2023, while costs rose. “There was just no economy of scale,” Pryor told theInquirer.“And it was making it much more challenging to make certain that we were able to offer all the things necessary for students to have a positive experience.” PAFA juniors and seniors planning to graduate from the school this year or next will still be able to do so, as will those currently enrolled in the master’s programs. Freshmen and sophomores must enroll elsewhere at the end of this semester..