North Central College will change its name to North Central University Naperville in July, school officials announced Monday.
The renaming is part of a strategic effort by the 165-year-old university to improve its brand recognition and more accurately capture what the school is: a four-year, private university with undergraduate and graduate degree programs located in one of the most sought-after cities in Illinois.
It also comes as institutions of higher education navigate a challenging landscape, including projected declines in high school graduates. While North Central has experienced record student enrollment for the third consecutive year, the Midwest is expected to see a 16% decline in high school graduates by 2041. Illinois is projected to see the worst decline in the region at 32%.
“To sit back and say, ‘Because you are doing well today means you are going to do well for the next 10 years,’ is beyond foolish,” North Central’s President Abiódún Gòkè-Paríolá said. “That is precisely the time you find, ‘What other quivers can I add?’”
While the name change will take effect July 1, 2027, implementation will be carried out over a multiyear period, with priority given to updating the school’s website, external signage and marketing materials. In the coming months, North Central will develop an updated logo and other marketing materials to accompany the launch.
Degrees earned before the July 1 date will still say North Central College, according to the school’s website.
Changing North Central’s name is a process that Gòkè-Paríolá said the school seriously began to examine in 2024
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, but conversations about a name change have been on and off for decades.“I started working here in the fall of 1993 in admissions, and I can tell you that through the years, the name has come up as a topic in fits and starts many times,” said Jim Godo, North Central’s vice president for communication and marketing.
He noted that from a recruiting and marketing standpoint, the name has made some people think that the institution was a community college rather than a four-year, private academic institution.
As the school has added more advanced programs to its offerings over the past decade, including within fields like occupational therapy, physical therapy and nursing, the institution’s academic scope seemed more akin to a university, Godo said. He also noted that the term university carries more weight today than the word college.
“We met with a small group of students a few weeks ago as part of this process, and one of the students shared a story about their conversation with their mom, and their mom wondered why the student was picking a college rather than a university,” he said. “The student shared this story and then talked about how excited they are at the notion that they will be able to tell their mom, ‘I graduated from a university.’”
The school’s location and relationship with Naperville was also something officials wanted to better highlight.
Adding Naperville to the name helps emphasize to prospective students that North Central is located in a city that consistently ranks among the best and safest in America. For Naperville residents, officials hope that the name change will also enhance the city’s educational reputation.
“Even when people think about Naperville, they think about a place that has great (K-12) education,” Godo said. “Our name, in many ways, has been a barrier to people associating higher education with Naperville and yet, when you take a look at the quality of higher education that students receive on our campus, it really is an education worthy of the name Naperville.”
At the same time, officials recognized that the name North Central College — a name that the institution has held for a century — holds strong sentimental value for many alumni, students and community members. Officials kept North Central in the new name to honor that legacy.
“The preservation of North Central in the name was very, very important to us. I myself am a graduate, and I’m just so proud of my alma mater and so proud that I get to talk about North Central University Naperville,” Godo said, who graduated in 1993. “It’s something that I could never have imagined when I was a student here.”
It is not the first time North Central has changed its name. When the school was founded in 1861 by leaders of the Evangelical Church, it was known as Plainfield College and located in Plainfield. In 1864, the school changed its name to North-Western College before moving to Naperville in 1870, where it was embraced by the town in the hope that it would fuel Naperville’s prosperity and growth.
The name North-Western College proved to be an issue for the institution because it was similar to Northwestern University in Evanston, which was established in 1851. In 1926, the school renamed itself North Central College to better represent its place in the Evangelical Church and to distinguish itself from Northwestern University and Naperville, according to a news release from the university.
The new name is not the only major change coming to North Central. Earlier this month, the school held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new Student Commons building. Once completed, the new facility will provide a 60,000-square-foot dining hall and student activity center. Officials expect the 30,000-square-foot dining hall portion of the facility to open in November 2027.