Queens University will become Elon University | Queens College, and the merger has already cost a few jobs

Queens University of Charlotte will operate as Elon University | Queens College once its merger with Elon receives federal approval, the two schools announced on Wednesday, September 23, one year to the day after they first said they would combine. The name applies to the undergraduate unit on the Myers Park campus; the graduate and professional programs in law, health sciences, counseling and business keep their own names under the Elon umbrella, according to the joint announcement.

Two days later The Charlotte Ledger reported the other side of the year: a small number of layoffs at Queens, which Elon’s president put at fewer than twenty, including a dean. The university confirmed the cuts to the Ledger.

What the name means

Queens has been called Queens College before. Founded in 1857 as the Charlotte Female Institute, the school used the Queens College name until it became a university in 2002, WFAE reported. The new name, written with a vertical bar, makes it a college of Elon while keeping the Queens name, the Royals athletic identity, the colors and the residential campus, which Queens has occupied on Selwyn Avenue since 1913.

Elon’s president, Connie Ledoux Book, said Queens College will carry forward the Queens name, residential experience, Royals tradition and deep relationship with Charlotte. Jesse Cureton, the acting president of Queens, told WFAE the school will continue to be the Royals and continue to honor the color and the mascot. The Royals stay in NCAA Division I.

The four pledges

The announcement came with four commitments to Charlotte, which the schools framed as what the city gets from the deal:

• A national model of engaged learning, built on internships, co-ops, research and service placements with Charlotte employers.
• A partner to employers, schools and civic organizations, with workforce alignment and educational pathways into the city’s industries.
• An intellectual, cultural and civic resource, through public programs, the arts and campus events open to the city.
• Investment in people and long-term strength, including competitive pay, professional development and campus infrastructure.

The concrete pieces have dates. Elon Law will open a full-time program in Charlotte in the fall of 2027, and a graduate physician assistant program is preparing to welcome its first class in January, according to the announcement.

Where the approval stands

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges approved the combination in June 2026, the schools said. The U.S. Department of Education’s review is ongoing, and the new name takes effect only when it is complete. Elon enrolls about 7,000 students and Queens about 2,000 by the schools’ count; WFAE put Queens’ current enrollment at about 1,600 and projected the Charlotte campus growing to roughly 2,500 after the merger.

Tuition is the number families will watch. Queens undergraduates pay about $47,400 a year before housing and fees, and Elon’s about $50,400, WFAE reported. Neither school has said what the Charlotte campus will charge after the name changes.

The layoffs

The Ledger’s Friday report described quiet changes to faculty and staff over the past year, including the departure of a dean and one high-profile, highly paid faculty member. Elon’s president said fewer than twenty people had been laid off. At the Wednesday announcement, WFAE reported, the two presidents did not rule out further job eliminations as operations are consolidated, and gave no numbers.

Our read: fewer than twenty cuts at a university with the payroll of Queens is small, and the schools are careful to call the merger a combination and the campus a college. But a merger that consolidates two administrations will not stop at a dean, and the Ledger’s reporting is the first count of what it has cost so far. Expect more once the federal review clears and the back offices merge.

The law school is the piece with the clearest timeline. Elon Law has operated in Greensboro since 2006, and the Charlotte program announced this week will be its first full-time campus in the state’s largest city, opening in the fall of 2027, according to the schools. Charlotte’s law students have driven to Greensboro, Chapel Hill or Winston-Salem for decades; a program on Selwyn Avenue changes that for the region’s banks, firms and courts, which is why the workforce pledge leads with it.

What changes for the neighborhood

For Myers Park, the visible change is a sign. The 50-acre campus stays, the students stay and the games stay. A law school and a physician assistant program mean more graduate students on Selwyn Avenue and in the apartments around it, and the pledge of campus infrastructure investment suggests construction, though nothing has been filed.

For Charlotte’s employers, the pledges are the point: a larger university with an Elon-scale internship program, a law school in the city for the first time since the merger talks began, and health programs feeding the region’s hospital systems.

Why it matters

Charlotte has long been the largest city in the country without a major private research university, and the Elon deal is the closest it has come to one. The name announced this week keeps the part of Queens that alumni care about and attaches it to an institution with three times the students and a national brand.

The cost so far is fewer than twenty jobs and a name that takes a moment to say out loud. We will report the Department of Education’s decision and any further staff changes as they come.

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