Mater Dei Prep In Middletown Closing, Citing Steep Drop In Enrollment

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — A longtime Catholic prep school in Middletown will be closing its doors in June, citing a dramatic drop in student enrollment.

The school is Mater Dei Prep, located on Church Street in Middletown. For more six decades, Mater Dei has provided a Catholic education to Monmouth County teens, and been a strong contender in high school sports.

Now, there are simply not enough students enrolled, said the school in this statement posted on the school website. The decline in students and tuition was made worse by the coronavirus pandemic, said the school.

Mater Dei Prep has a current enrollment of 220 students; it had 300 students enrolled as recently as 2018. In 2014, there were more than 400 students enrolled at Mater Dei.

“The fact is that we simply do not have the funds to continue school operations after this academic year," Mater Dei Prep School Board Chair Kathryn McLaughlin said in the statement.

Since 2014, enrollment at Mater Dei has dropped by more than half, she said. That meant a steep loss of tuition payments and a loss of revenue. The Catholic prep school has been operating at an operational deficit the past several years, she said.

"Fewer students and the resulting loss in revenue through the years has created an operational deficit that depleted the school’s reserve, despite aggressive fundraising efforts," McLaughlin explained.

She said Mater Dei has a current annual operational gap of more than $1 million, "which we cannot bridge."

"We concluded that further cuts would only compromise the quality of education for which Mater Dei Prep is known. The steady decline in enrollment, along with increasing expenses and the ongoing financial assistance we provide to our families has made this closure unavoidable.”

Mater Dei was actually supposed to close in 2014-15, but a group of parents and alumni lobbied the Diocese of Trenton to keep it open. To save the school, Mater Dei was converted into an independent 501(c) non-profit corporation and an ambitious fundraising campaign raised over $1.5 million dollars to keep its doors open.

"However, the subsequent years saw further declines in applications and enrollment," said McLaughlin. "Those factors and declines in fundraising were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Mater Dei Prep proudly stepped up and met those challenges, but the combination of higher costs, fewer students and demographic trends created structural operating losses."

Mater Dei Prep first opened in 1961 and more than 8,000 young men and women have graduated from here; the school called its students "sons and daughters of Monmouth County."

According to the National Catholic Educational Association, almost 1,000 elementary and secondary Catholic schools have closed across the country since 2009. In New Jersey, where many Catholics in America live, more than 100 Catholic schools have closed in the past 20 years.

Some nearby Catholic schools that have shuttered are Mother Seton Academy in Howell and Holy Innocents School in Neptune. Saint Joseph High School in Hammonton, a South Jersey football powerhouse, also closed its doors.

"All of them resulting from similar enrollment and revenue challenges faced by Mater Dei Prep," said McLaughlin. “Mater Dei Prep is proud of its service to the community through six decades, maintaining the highest standards of Catholic education. This has been a painful and difficult decision for everyone involved. We are heartened knowing the positive impact Mater Dei Prep has made in the lives of our current and former students, their families and alumni."

"After 61 years of providing academic excellence to Monmouth County and the diocese of Trenton, Mater Dei Prep High School will be closing its doors at the completion of the academic year in June 2022," said Mater Dei in a post Monday night on its Facebook page. "All classes, athletic team schedules, guidance and extracurricular activities will continue in full force through the end of the current academic year."

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