The University of Valley Forge is warned it could lose accreditation
The small Christian university is based in Phoenixville and enrolls fewer than 600 students.
The University of Valley Forge, a small Christian school that prepares students for leadership in the church and the world, has been given a serious warning that it is in danger of losing its accreditation.
The Phoenexville-based college has until Sept. 1 to “show cause” to justify why it should not lose accreditation, according to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, which posted the action on its website this week. Colleges need accreditation to keep their students eligible for federal aid.
The “show cause” action is the most serious that the commission issues. Others include warning and probation.
The commission cited “insufficient evidence that the institution is in compliance” with standards involving planning, resources, and institutional improvement and governance, leadership, and administration.
The university must document in its show cause report “financial resources, funding base, and plans for financial development to support its educational purposes and programs and to ensure financial stability,” the commission said. The school also must provide information on long-range financial planning that include “realistic enrollment projections and the assumptions on which they are based,” the commission said.
The university did not immediately return a call for comment Wednesday and when asked for the current enrollment, an employee said she was not permitted to disclose any information and hung up. The school enrolls 589 students, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Under the action, the school is required to immediately notify its community of Middle States’ action.
The university started in 1939 as the Eastern Bible Institute, which was aimed at training pastors, evangelists, missionaries and Christian educators, and lay workers, according to the school’s website. It became a college in 1975 and the University of Valley Forge in 2014. The university is part of an international network of Assemblies of God colleges and universities and offers more than 60 degree programs, according to its website.
