“It’s tough — I know what the college is going through, and there are not a lot of alternatives right now,” said former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, who served as Drew’s president from 1990 to 2005, and has been active in efforts to preserve Westminster. “This is one of the best schools of its kind — not just in the state, but the country and the world. To lose it would be a tragedy.”

Founded in 1920 in a Presbyterian church in Dayton, Ohio, Westminster relocated to Ithaca, N.Y., before settling in Princeton in 1932. While it lacks the cachet of New York’s Juilliard School or Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music, Westminster has trained many singers affiliated with the Metropolitan Opera, as well as scores of choral directors and music teachers.

In the early 1990s, though, the college nearly closed in the face of mounting debt, declining enrollment and deteriorating facilities. Along came Rider, a private college which hoped to expand into the arts.

After the 2008 recession, however, Rider’s enrollment fell by 12 percent, before rebounding slightly in 2016. Now, with 88 percent of its revenue coming from students, the university relies more on tuition than its peers, according to Moody’s Investor Service, which revised its outlook for Rider to negative in November, citing the potential impact of the Westminster sale.

“As part of our financials, and our strategy going forward, we cannot make the kind of investments that Westminster needs,” said Dr. Dell’Omo, who previously served as president of Robert Morris University, outside Pittsburgh.

Dr. Dell’Omo has pushed to incorporate more “higher-demand career” programs, such as computer science and sports management into Rider’s offerings. When he revived a proposal to move Westminster to Rider’s main Lawrenceville, N.J., campus, and sell the 23-acre Princeton parcel, irate faculty, students and alumni said the acoustics and intimate milieu could not be replicated.