Salus University, graduate health science institution, looks to join with Drexel University
Dive Transient:
- A graduate well being science establishment in Pennsylvania is trying to merge with Drexel College, one of many largest non-public nonprofit establishments within the area.
- Salus College, additionally a non-public nonprofit faculty, is in search of an “affiliation” with Drexel, the 2 establishments introduced Monday. A partnership with Salus would open an array of famend “non-overlapping graduate diploma applications within the well being sciences,” Drexel’s president, John Fry, said in a statement.
- A spokesperson for Salus didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark Tuesday. Nonetheless, Salus’ president, Michael Mittelman, informed the campus a deal linking the universities’ graduate well being sciences schooling and scientific apply applications might wrap up as quickly as late spring or early summer season 2023, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Dive Perception:
Enrollment has held regular at Drexel, a big, well-known establishment with a major campus in Philadelphia, for the final decade, with 23,216 college students in fall 2021, together with 14,413 undergraduates.
Nonetheless, faculties throughout the U.S. have eyed increasing their graduate choices because the pool of potential undergraduate college students continues to shrink. Rising healthcare applications has been a well-liked transfer, particularly amongst small and midsize faculties, as states grapple with shortages in fields like nursing.
In his assertion, Fry identified that “demographic shifts, world occasions and an unsure economic system” have affected larger schooling. Schools should be extra nimble in bolstering their tutorial strengths, he mentioned.
Pairing with Salus would “would additional solidify Drexel’s place as a pacesetter in making ready future interprofessional well being sciences practitioners” in areas comparable to optometry, audiology, blindness and low-vision research, speech-language pathology, occupational remedy, and orthotics and prosthetics, Fry mentioned.
The Drexel president highlighted that Salus operates 4 scientific amenities in Philadelphia and Montgomery counties focusing on a few of these applications.
An affiliation with Salus, which enrolled fewer than 1,200 graduate college students in fall 2021, can be topic to numerous regulatory approvals, Fry mentioned. The governing boards of the respective establishments would log off on the deal in Might, he mentioned.
The upper schooling market in Pennsylvania is especially saturated. The Keystone State includes a host of public establishments, a few of them outstanding names like Pennsylvania State College and the College of Pittsburgh. Prestigious non-public establishments additionally abound, together with College of Pennsylvania and Carnegie Mellon College.
This hypercompetitive atmosphere partly led the Pennsylvania State System of Increased Schooling to merge six of its establishments into two final yr, with the hopes of bolstering enrollment and drawing in untapped scholar populations, together with working adults.
As of October, nonetheless, the system’s enrollment continued to fall. The variety of college students dropped from 88,700 college students in fall 2021 to about 84,600 final yr. System officers expressed optimism, although, because the share of first-time college students picked up for the primary time in a decade.
