The Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture has issued a statement that it has reached its 2015 fundraising goal of $2 million – a crucial milestone towards establishing the school's independence from the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. The goal of becoming an independent subsidiary of the foundation became necessary when new accreditation regulations established in 2011 required the school to be financially and administratively independent or risk being stripped of its accreditation by the Higher Learning Commission.

In this latest statement, the school says: "As part of the agreement, the Foundation will continue to support the School financially over the next four years, investing over $1.4 in its operating costs and future growth. In addition, it will donate the extensive use of historic, residential, and classroom facilities at Taliesin and Taliesin West, which cost the Foundation over $1 million in cash a year for the spaces utilized by the School.  Combined with the more than $2 million raised, this Foundation investment of $7 million will support the School through at least 2019."

Aaron Betsky, who became the school's dean in February, remarked: “We have been hard at work with the Foundation’s staff and Board to ensure the School’s future not just in financial and organizational terms, but also by improving its curriculum and by developing programs that continue Wright’s legacy in organic architecture and learning by doing in ways that answer to our needs for a more sustainable, open, and beautiful human-made environment.”

The school board's next hurdle will be to develop a "Change of Control" application with legal and incorporation documents to be filed with the Higher Learning Commission. If the HLC's review process (expected for June of next year) goes as planned, the foundation is able to move forward and file documents with federal and state agencies to establish the Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture as an autonomous, independently incorporated subsidiary of the foundation. According to the statement, completion of this process is expected by early 2017.

Taliesin previously in the Archinect news:

• With $1.5M to go, Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture approaches first fundraising milestone towards independence
• Aaron Betsky To Lead Taliesin West
• Wright Architecture School Sets Fund-raising Goal for Independence
• New Plan for Architecture School at Wright Foundation
• Spiralling Tensions at Frank Lloyd Wright Architecture School
• Taliesin faces loss of accreditation, suspends fall enrollment