St. Joe’s finalizes its merger agreement with the Pa. College of Health Sciences

The agreement to merge with the college in Lancaster became final this month.

Nursing students walk on St. Joseph's University's new site in Lancaster. The university has completed a merger with the Pennsylvania College of Health Sciences there.Read moreCourtesy of Theresa Regan

Published Jan. 12, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET

St. Joseph’s University earlier this month finalized a merger agreement with the Pennsylvania College of Health Sciences in Lancaster, which will allow it to add nursing programs, a longtime goal.

The university plans to admit its first 80 nursing students this fall on its Hawk Hill campus while continuing to run the health sciences programs in Lancaster.

“The acquisition allowed us to not only grow the programs in Lancaster but to immediately implement a quality, proven, accredited nursing program in the Philadelphia region,” said St. Joe’s president, Cheryl McConnell.

Students in the Lancaster program will notice little difference in their education, other than that they now will be under the St. Joe’s name, with new St. Joe’s-branded scrubs, she said. The vast majority of employees there will continue to serve in their current roles in Lancaster, she said, while Lancaster General Health is working to provide options for the few who will not.

The health sciences college, enrolling about 2,000 students, was founded by Lancaster General Hospital, which is owned by the University of Pennsylvania. Decades-long affiliation agreements with both the hospital and Penn were secured and key to closing the deal, McConnell said. The Lancaster hospital has agreed to continue providing tuition remission for employees and guarantee clinical placements for programs taught in Lancaster, with the possibility of expansion, and Penn Medicine has agreed to provide clinical rotation spots in the Philadelphia region to St. Joe’s nursing students studying on the Philadelphia campus, she said.

St. Joe’s announced a definitive agreement to merge with the college about a year ago, but had to clear a series of government and accreditation requirements, which now have been completed, McConnell said.

St. Joe’s has said the merger will broaden its campus beyond Philadelphia and add more than 20 nursing and allied health programs to its academic roster. The programs range from the certificate level to the doctoral level, the school said. The quality of the Lancaster college’s programs and success of its graduates made it a clear choice as a partner, McConnell said.

In 2022, nearly 94% of the college’s graduates who received a bachelor’s in nursing degree and who took the licensure exam to work as a registered nurse passed. That’s higher than the statewide average of 84%.

She declined to release the financial terms of the sale or say whether the $60.8 million that the college owed Lancaster General would be forgiven as part of the deal. McConnell and others are expected to discuss the merger at a news conference Friday.

“It follows up on our strategy to assure that we have all of the programs to meet the needs of the students in the region,” McConnell said. “All universities that are going to thrive in the future — and St. Joseph’s is one of those — need to be always looking and searching to make sure they have all the programs that are necessary.”

The new merger comes just a year and a half after St. Joe’s merged with the University of the Sciences in West Philadelphia. With the addition of the Lancaster program, St. Joe’s enrollment will rise to between 8,000 and 9,000, school officials said.

No other mergers are currently on the horizon, McConnell said.

Founded in 1903 as a nursing school, Pennsylvania College didn’t become a college until 2001 and didn’t receive Middle States Commission on Higher Education accreditation until 2006. It awarded its first bachelor’s in nursing in 2009 and took on its current name. Penn acquired it in 2015, when the college also began offering graduate courses.

In connection with the sale, Penn’s health system wrote down the value of the college’s property by $14.6 million in the year ended June 30, 2023, according to its audited financial statements. The college had an operating loss of $2.1 million on $35.6 million in revenue during the year ended June 30, 2022, its financial records show.

Five boards had to vote on the plan — those of the two colleges, as well as those at Lancaster General, Penn and Penn Medicine.

McConnell said applications for the nursing program on the Hawk Hill campus exceeded their expectations and come amid a 26.4% increase in applications overall at St. Joe’s. Melissa Snyder, who had been dean of the Lancaster college, will be the inaugural dean of St. Joe’s new school of nursing and allied health.