Despite Campus Closure, Kellogg’s San Francisco Immersion Will Continue: Dean

Editor’s note: This story has been updated with comments from Northwestern Kellogg Dean Francesca Cornelli.

After nearly a decade of trying to plant a purple flag in the heart of Silicon Valley, Northwestern University is pulling out of San Francisco — shuttering its downtown campus by spring 2026.

But according to statements from the Kellogg School of Management and its Dean Francesca Cornelli, the closure will not end the B-school’s West Coast ambitions.

As The Daily Northwestern first reported on Thursday (May 1), the university’s decision to close the 18th-floor campus at 44 Montgomery Street was driven by deepening financial uncertainty. In early April, WBEZ Chicago revealed that nearly $790 million in federal research dollars had been frozen amid a Department of Education civil rights investigation.

The result has been a cascade of canceled grants, stop-work orders, and suspended payments — wiping out major revenue streams and forcing leaders in Evanston to make hard decisions.

A BOLD BET, NOW UNWINDING

However, despite the campus closure, Kellogg’s presence in San Francisco will continue, according to Dean Francesca Cornelli.

“There are no plans to change the Kellogg San Francisco Immersion program,” she says in a statement provided to Poets&Quants. “The SF Immersion program is impactful for Kellogg students interested in VC, entrepreneurship, and technology because it provides a unique opportunity to intern for VC companies, build a network in the Bay Area and take Kellogg courses all at the same time. We will be continuing these efforts.”

Launched in 2016, Northwestern’s San Francisco campus was meant to be more than just a satellite. A cross-disciplinary outpost hosting programs from Kellogg, the Medill School of Journalism, the Pritzker School of Law, the Segal Design Institute, and the Farley Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, it was a beachhead in tech’s backyard. For Kellogg, the Bay Area campus has offered proximity to innovation, alumni, venture capital — and prestige. Executive education modules and networking events were designed to deepen ties to a region that has reshaped global business.

It is unclear where Kellogg will be based after the campus closes in 2026.

Kellogg is not the only elite B-school with a San Francisco presence. Wharton opened a San Francisco campus in 2001, and INSEAD did the same in 2020; in February the French B-school announced an expansion of its presence there. Kellogg also has campuses in Miami, Florida, and Chicago, Illinois, where it has annual cohorts of learners in its top-ranked Executive MBA program and part-time MBA program.

‘NOT A CORE PART OF NORTHWESTERN’

The financial free fall for Northwestern didn’t start in San Francisco. It started in Washington.

The Trump administration’s crackdown on elite universities, ostensibly about civil rights and stamping out anti-semitism, has taken direct aim at Northwestern’s research engine. As WBEZ reported, nearly all of the school’s federal funding is in jeopardy, including Department of Defense contracts and National Science Foundation grants. The implications go far beyond research labs — they ripple across the university’s budget, threatening everything from faculty recruitment to student financial aid.

“The demand for academic program activity in that location no longer supports the need for a dedicated space,” a Northwestern spokesperson tells The Daily Northwestern. “Moving forward, Northwestern will continue to thoughtfully consider strategic educational opportunities that serve the institution’s mission and priorities.”

JP Salvador, the San Francisco site manager, says he found out about the closure just three weeks before it was announced. “When there’s uncertainty in the economy, people don’t donate as much,” he says. “And a lot of the programs are donor-funded.”

Salvador says the federal funding freeze was a key cause of the West Coast closure.

“It all comes down to money,” he tells The Daily Northwestern. “If you don’t have it or you’re running out of it, then you have to make some cuts here and there. And San Francisco is not a core part of Northwestern.”

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