Queens University of Charlotte revealed Wednesday that it will return to its former name, Queens College, once its merger with Elon University is complete.<\/p>\n
Queens President Jesse Cureton acknowledged Wednesday that “most of our living alums are Queens College grads.” He said the new name will honor the school’s historic identity. The new name will take effect when the merger is approved by the U.S. Department of Education. It’s unclear when that might be.<\/p>\n
The university was founded in 1857 as the “Charlotte Female Institute,” at the time Charlotte’s only college for women. It was renamed “Presbyterian College for Women” in the 1890s.<\/p>\n
But when the school moved to its current 50-acre Myers Park campus in 1914, it took the name “Queens College.” The school changed “college” to “university” in 2002.<\/p>\n
Details: Grad programs under review, and more<\/p>\n
Under the new structure, Queens College will become Elon University’s undergraduate school in Charlotte. Its formal name will be \u201cElon University | Queens College,\u201d which will appear on undergraduate diplomas.<\/p>\n
Elon will offer all of the Charlotte campus’ graduate programs. The universities are still evaluating which Queens graduate programs will continue or merge with Elon’s.<\/p>\n
Elon also plans to offer a full-time law program at the Queens campus starting in 2027, said Elon President Connie Ledoux Book.<\/p>\n
The two schools are still considering how the merger might affect tuition, though Book noted that both schools already charge comparable rates. Queens undergraduate programs typically run around $47,400 a year<\/a> \u2014 not including housing or fees \u2014 while Elon charges about $50,400 a year<\/a>.<\/p>\n The university presidents did not rule out the possibility of layoffs or job eliminations. <\/p>\n One thing that won’t change, Cureton said: The name of Queens’ athletic teams.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will continue to be the Royals,\u201d Cureton said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to continue to honor the color, the mascot, all of those things. We\u2019re Division I today. We will continue to be Division I.\u201d<\/p>\n Elon University also plans to make “significant investments” in campus infrastructure and grow the school’s enrollment from its current 1,600 students to about 2,500, Cureton said.<\/p>\n ‘We needed to find a partner’<\/p>\n The schools announced the merger in September 2025 as Queens was undergoing a period of financial challenges and declining enrollment.<\/p>\n Queens was never at risk of closing, Cureton said, but it was clear that “we needed to find a partner.”<\/p>\n “The more we talked with Elon,” he said, “the more it became clear that not only would this be a great opportunity to partner on graduate programs, but a great opportunity to merge.”<\/p>\n