Students at the NewSchool of Architecture & Design returned to classes this spring not in the East Village warehouse for which the school has been known for decades but the former WeWork space at 600 B Street. Officials portrayed the move as a win-win because attending classes in an office setting mimics the real world and the new location is cheaper and closer to industry, with aerial views of construction downtown.
But the public messaging left out a key detail: NewSchool’s East Village landlords filed an eviction case in summer 2024, with the court ruling this spring that the college owed $2.2 million in past-due rent. The case was subsequently settled.
For years, the private for-profit business overseeing the education of architects and construction managers in San Diego has been dogged by bad press and concerns raised by accreditation bodies, primarily over falling enrollment and a revolving door for the staff.
The NewSchool of Architecture and Design’s old campus located along Park Avenue in the East Village, on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (Photo by Vito di Stefano)The former president and chief academic officer is also suing the college and its owners. She accused the corporate leaders of grossly misrepresenting the school’s finances and of deceiving her into taking the job, a claim the college has denied.
Ambow Education, a holding company incorporated in the Cayman Islands and based in Cupertino, Calif., that bought NewSchool in 2020, didn’t respond to requests for interview or comment, nor did NewSchool leaders. But in recent interviews with the Union-Tribune, they stressed that the college has invested millions without raising tuition and broken even since 2023.
Hanging over the court cases and press coverage is a bigger question — whether the difficulties at the NewSchool are unique or part of a broader trend in the study of architecture. It is the last architectural school standing within 120 miles of San Diego after the Los Angeles-based Woodbury University closed a satellite campus in Barrio Logan last year.
In 2022, the U.S. Department of Education put the NewSchool on a cash monitoring list, making enrollment goals harder to hit by restricting where the college can recruit. That same year, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) issued a formal Notice of Concern, citing a significant drop in enrollment and an unusually high leadership turnover. As the Union-Tribune reported, the college had nearly 700 students in 2011 and about half that going into the pandemic.
A more recent letter from WASC, sent in 2024, gave the NewSchool credit for staff and structural changes, including “new initiatives in enrollment, marketing, and student success,” but echoed some of its previous concerns. It requested a progress report, audited financial statements and enrollment numbers. Reviewers are scheduled to visit the NewSchool again in fall 2026 to coincide with the eight-year accreditation cycle.
In the meantime, the college is pushing hard into artificial intelligence — what it calls “physical + digital” learning environments, or “phygital” for short, to chase international students. The company has boasted that its HybriU technology “bridges language and regional divides, and connects academia with industry,” and recently launched a “real-time translation platform delivering subscription-based interpreter services for global events.”
There has been speculation for years that local architects could band together to buy the NewSchool. Professor emeritus Michael Stepner, who taught at the NewSchool for 30 years, said the whispers go back at least a decade, pre-dating Ambow’s arrival.
The NewSchool of Architecture and Design’s new campus inside the We Work building along B Street in downtown San Diego on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (Photo by Vito di Stefano)“There’s a whole group of us, former faculty and students, who are always concerned the school may not make it,” he said. “We all have a loyalty to the institution … from all the efforts we put into it to maintain and build it from almost nothing.”
That concern, however, intensified after another of Ambow’s schools, Bay State College, in Massachusetts, lost accreditation and closed in 2023 following allegations that students had been enrolled in classes that didn’t exist.
“We’ve had all these problems with for-profit institutions, and we were caught in that, but we never had the problems academically that others had,” Stepner said.
In its most recent Securities and Exchange Commission annual report, the company reported a net revenue loss of $3.2 million in 2023 and a net revenue gain of $300,000 in 2024. The gain, Ambow said, “was primarily driven by revenue growth from the launch of HybriU, while partially offset by the closure of Bay State College.” The company said it had enough cash on hand “for at least the next 12 months,” but warned, “Management cannot provide any assurance that we will raise additional capital if needed.”
The report also noted offhand: Because Ambow is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, it “is not subject to taxes on its income or capital gains.” Four of the five directors listed China as their primary residence.
Stepner blamed declining enrollment on industry-wide factors and noted that in the 1990s he and others aimed for 250 students. The student body grew during an era of low interest rates. Then came the pandemic.
The schooling, apprenticeship and licensing required to become an architect takes a long time, and parts of the architectural process have also been lost over the years to automation. It’s a massive investment of resources — $174,000 for a four-year bachelor’s degree — and so students are looking at other industries and degrees for financial security.
“Architecture is not a thing you make money fast in,” Stepner said.
Kotaro Nakamura, former director of SDSU’s School of Art + Design, who taught briefly at the NewSchool, described architecture as both a science and an artform. He said private schools tend to emphasize technical training over artistic spirit. Fulfilling a human need to theorize and create is harder to justify when profit is at the center of your organization.
“Money becomes the primary focus and less so on making great architects,” he said. “Having a good architectural school is a necessity to improve the living environment.”
Banking on AI comes with its own risks, and its effect on the industry is still an open question. Nakamura said practitioners believe AI will eliminate busywork and free up space to generate new ideas, but history suggests otherwise. When CAD — computer-aided design — was introduced, many thought it would make drafting easier.
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