Glasgow Caledonian University to sell New York campus GCUNYC

Scotland’s first university to open a campus in New York is set to sell the site after admitting it has not “reached its potential”.

Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) first opened its satellite campus, GCUNYC, on New York’s Wooster Street in September 2013, however was only able to start awarding degrees from 2017 and struggled to attract students.

The wait over being able to issue degree certificates was due to delays in gaining a licence from authorities in New York.

The university had given £26.5m in loans and grants to the project.

In a statement announcing it would exit its New York campus, GCU said: “Despite the significant efforts of many staff in the UK and New York in building highly regarded academic programmes, GCNYC has to date not reached its potential.

“Since starting in January, the university’s new principal and vice-chancellor professor Steve Decent, has reviewed the operation of GCNYC.

“Following a discussion at the university court in February, it was agreed that the university would actively seek a partnership with another educational organisation, with a view to the partner ultimately acquiring GCNYC.”

It said that whilst a partnership is the preferred option for GCUNYC, in the event a partnership cannot be established, the university will initiate a process to exit from New York.

A spokesperson for GCU added: “We are engaged in active conversations with a number of prestigious educational organisations and these discussions are on-going.

“To allow the space for a potential partner to play a lead role in future planning as partnership discussions progress, we have decided to pause student recruitment and admissions for trimester A 2023.

“We are committed to delivering our programmes to current students in New York whatever the outcome of the partnership discussions, and we are supporting our staff at GCNYC.”