Seattle University students will stay on Capitol Hill longer each term starting in fall 2027, when the private Jesuit university switches from a quarter calendar to semesters.
The change stretches each academic term from roughly 10 weeks to 15, shifting when SU's more than 7,000 students arrive in the fall and leave in the spring.
That altered rhythm will ripple into the Pike/Pine and Broadway corridors, where students rent apartments, fill restaurant seats and shop, CHS Capitol Hill Seattle News reported.
Kevin Kryca, Seattle University's director of Academic Calendar Conversion, said the shift will keep students engaged in the neighborhood for longer stretches. "They'll be here earlier in the year, they'll just see a different rhythm in the community," Kryca said.
The university's Board of Trustees voted unanimously on May 29 to approve the switch, according to the Seattle Spectator. The first semester begins in summer 2027.
Cornish merger forced the question
Seattle University acquired Cornish College of the Arts on June 2, 2025, absorbing the South Lake Union arts school after Cornish dissolved itself and donated all assets to SU. Cornish and SU's law school already operated on semesters. Running two calendars across two campuses complicated course access for students on both sides.
Under the unified calendar, Cornish students will be able to take courses on SU's First Hill campus, and SU undergraduates can enroll in arts courses at the South Lake Union location, according to the SU newsroom.
Morgan Frost, part of SU's Project Delivery and Change Management team, said the longer terms also open doors for community partnerships. "Some partner organizations can't work with us because the quarter system is too short," Frost said.
New president inherits the transition
Maura Mast, a mathematician and former dean of Fordham College at Rose Hill, began her tenure as SU's 23rd president on Tuesday, Sept. 1. She is SU's first woman president.
Former president Eduardo Peñalver left to lead Georgetown University on July 1, according to Spectator reporting.
Enrollment pressures loom
The calendar switch is also a recruiting play. Kryca cited the demographic cliff as one driver. The term refers to a shrinking pool of college-eligible students tied to lower birth rates after the 2008 financial crisis.
Aligning with the semester system used by most U.S. colleges positions SU to compete for transfer students, international applicants and graduate candidates.
SU enrolled 7,189 students in fall 2024, including 4,103 undergraduates. First-time first-year enrollment dropped 5.1% over the prior decade, the Spectator reported in January 2025, though SU's overall undergraduate decline of 4.7% since 2010 outpaced the national average of 14.9%.
Dr. Mark Gius, an economics professor at Quinnipiac University who led a 2024 economic impact study for Independent Colleges of Washington, said the calendar change alone will have a negligible economic effect on the region. The bigger pressure is the shrinking student pipeline. "Everyone's chasing a declining number of students," Gius said.
What Capitol Hill businesses should know
The University of Washington and Seattle Central College, the two other major institutions feeding students into Capitol Hill, will remain on quarters. SU's earlier fall start and later spring end will put its students on a different cycle than UW's 50,000-plus and Seattle Central's roughly 5,400 students.
Alison Scott, senior membership development manager at the Greater Seattle Business Association, said the biggest adjustment will fall on students themselves, not local shops.
SU has published sample semester plans and syllabi so current students can see how their credits will transfer. Students graduating by June 2027 will finish on the quarter system. Fall 2026 quarter classes begin Sept. 23.
