George Washington University has sold its Virginia Science and Technology Campus, school officials said Friday.
The 120-acre Ashburn campus, which includes the university’s nursing school and labs where engineering, physics and chemistry research is done, was founded in 1991 about 25 miles northwest of the school’s downtown Washington location.
The sale is intended to strengthen the university’s long-term health, according to a letter from GWU’s president, Ellen M. Granberg, to the campus community. The school had already cut costs in recent months, including layoffs, as it contends with financial headwinds including declining federal research funding, restrictions on international student enrollment, and limitations of federal loan and financial aid programs. Expenses have been growing faster than revenue in recent years, according to school officials.
Granberg did not disclose the buyer or sale price for the Ashburn campus, citing confidentiality provisions.
The sale will not close the university’s budget deficit, Granberg wrote. But some of the proceeds will be directed to a new endowment that will fund investments in the school’s research and teaching mission and student financial aid, she said.
A spokeswoman for GWU, Julia Garbitt, said that under the terms of the sale, the university has the option to keep programs at the campus for up to five years. There’s no immediate impact to the nursing school or any other programs at the campus, she said.
“GW is fully committed to the School of Nursing,” she said in a statement, “and we look forward to the new opportunities this sale creates to further strengthen and support the school’s mission.”
Potential buyers approached the school as land prices in Loudoun County rose rapidly, Garbitt said.
The post George Washington University sells its Virginia campus appeared first on Washington Post.
