Cascade College, which Oklahoma Christian University has operated as a satellite campus in Portland, Ore., since 1994, will close at the end of the spring 2009 semester because of financial difficulties, The Christian Chronicle reported.

According to a university statement cited in the article, Oklahoma Christian’s president, Mike E. O’Neal, said the shaky economy “was not a significant factor” in the trustees’ decision, “but it obviously did not help.” The closing will affect about 280 students and 45 full-time faculty and staff members.

Cascade, founded as Columbia Christian College in 1956, had run into financial problems before. It had shut down in the early 1990s before Oklahoma Christian reopened it. —Charles Huckabee