Pasadena’s Providence Christian College to Close, After Two Decades

Providence Christian College, the small Reformed Christian liberal arts school that has held classes in a 1928 landmark church on East Walnut Street for the past seven years, will close at the end of this academic year.

The college’s board of trustees voted February 7 to shut the institution down after concluding there was no path to long-term survival, President Steven B. Kortenhoeven said in a statement posted on the school’s website. The college cited declining enrollment, the high expense of operating in Southern California, heightened accreditation expectations, and the loss of federal funds.

Providence enrolled 168 students last fall, according to federal data. Publicly available financial records show the college carried an endowment of just $25,322 and operated at a nearly $1 million loss in fiscal year 2024, according to a report by Inside Higher Ed.

“The challenges of ongoing low enrollment coupled with the high expense of operating a college in Southern California were insurmountable factors,” Kortenhoeven said in the statement.

The closure ends a 20-year effort to build a confessionally Reformed Christian college on the West Coast. Providence was incorporated in 2002 and welcomed its first class of 22 students in 2005 at a campus in Ontario. The college moved to Pasadena in 2010 and relocated to its current site at 464 E. Walnut St. — a Gothic Revival church building at the corner of Walnut and Los Robles Avenue in Old Pasadena — in late 2018. The City of Pasadena’s Historic Preservation Commission designated the building as a landmark that same year.

Among the factors Kortenhoeven cited was the loss of federal funding tied to the college’s designation as a Hispanic-serving institution. The U.S. Department of Education recognized Providence as an HSI in 2023, providing it with a $3 million grant to be distributed over five years in $600,000 annual increments, according to Inside Higher Ed. The Trump administration deemed such grant programs unconstitutional in 2025 and stopped awarding them to minority-serving institutions. Nearly half of Providence’s student body is Hispanic or Latino, according to federal enrollment data.

The college’s accreditation had also come under pressure. The WASC Senior College and University Commission, Providence’s regional accreditor, placed the school on probation, according to WSCUC’s public records. The commission’s February 2025 action letter is the most recent listed on its website.

“Being mindful of stewarding God’s resources well and after exhausting a number of different options to decrease operational expenses, recruit additional students, and even change the campus location, the board felt that this was the only option remaining,” Kortenhoeven said.

Over half of the college’s full-time students are scheduled to graduate in May, Kortenhoeven said. For underclassmen who will not finish their degrees before Providence closes, the school has established teach-out agreements with three California-based Christian institutions: Biola University, Concordia University, and The Master’s University. Those agreements are designed to allow students to complete their degrees on a similar timeline and at a comparable cost, according to the college’s announcement.

Kortenhoeven said the board chose to announce the decision in February to give students time to find new schools and faculty and staff time to seek new positions.

Providence is the second institution to announce a closure in 2026. California College of the Arts announced last month that it would shut down and sell its campus to Vanderbilt University, according to Inside Higher Ed.

The college offers a single bachelor’s degree in liberal studies. It is accredited by WSCUC and draws students from more than 20 states and several countries, according to institutional materials. Tuition and fees are $36,963, according to U.S. News & World Report.

“Providence has served students faithfully for 20 years, educating them from a Reformed Christian, liberal arts perspective,” Kortenhoeven said in the statement. “God has used our educational program to change student lives and impact communities and the world for God’s glory.”

Providence Christian College can be reached at (626) 696-4000. The closure announcement and additional information, including teach-out and transfer details, are available at providencecc.edu/announcement.

The college’s founders chose the name “Providence,” Kortenhoeven wrote, because they believed deeply in God’s care for his people. He closed his statement with a passage from the Heidelberg Catechism: “We can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and with a view to the future, we can have a firm confidence in our faithful God and Father that nothing can separate us from his love.”