Hodges University’s final days are edging closer. The college’s last classes are Aug. 25, a year after the institution announced it would close.
“The school is closing with dignity. It was not going to be like some colleges that disappeared overnight without paying their bills and their contracts,” said school President Charlene Wendel.
The school is selling as much of the equipment, furniture and other items as close to value as possible, she said.
Hodges opened in 1990 as International College in Naples and was renamed Hodges University in 2007, honoring Earl and Thelma Hodges, after a $12 million donation.
Hodges decided to close after facing declining enrollment. It had 443 students enrolled in 2022, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The school had as many as 2,000 students a decade earlier.
Hodges has a little more than100 students attending the summer semester.
The biggest decision now is what to do with the school’s assets. Hodges is a nonprofit, so it is required to transfer all remaining assets to another tax-exempt organization or the government. It can’t give away property to board members, staff, volunteers or beneficiaries.
Wendel said the school’s board of trustees won’t know how much the school will have in assets until it pays all its bills and sells all its equipment and a piece of property on its former campus at the corner of Winkler Avenue and Colonial Boulevard in Fort Myers. Any decision should take place by the end of the year, she said.
Board President Carmen Salomé declined to comment. She said the board of trustees has given Wendel the authority to speak on the board’s behalf.
The school had $24.1 million in assets as of June 2023, according to its IRS filing. Wendell said the number is misleading because it still included the campus buildings sold in 2022.
Hodges closed the sale of its campus buildings in October 2022 for $27.5 million and leased back the buildings for 30 years. The school sold its Naples campus buildings in 2021.
Hodges spent $3.5 million in 2019 to retrofit one of the Fort Myers buildings into the School of Health Sciences. The retrofit included two nursing labs, dental clinic, dental simulation lab, EMT lab and two physical therapist assistant labs. The equipment is being sold.
Remaining assets won’t go to another nonprofit school or to a state school, Wendell said. The board wants to use the money to help the kinds of students who attended Hodges. Some kind of scholarship program is a possibility.
About 84% of the 339 undergrads enrolled in 2022 received some kind of grant or scholarship aid, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. About 37% of the students receive federal student loans.
