Mount Vernon College, which has been independently educating women in the District for more than 120 years, will become a women's campus of George Washington University over the next 18 months under a plan that has drawn praise from officials at both schools but left many students grumbling.

The move comes 14 months after Mount Vernon sought George Washington's help with insurmountable financial problems and the two schools announced an "affiliation." George Washington purchased the Mount Vernon campus on Foxhall Road in Northwest Washington, but allowed the school to function largely as a separate entity, with its own faculty and administrative staff for its 550 students.

That arrangement will change during the 18-month transition in which Mount Vernon's administration will be phased out and its faculty -- 20 tenured professors and 10 others -- likely will be laid off with at least a year's pay, said Grae Baxter, acting president of Mount Vernon. Seniors and juniors will graduate with Mount Vernon College degrees, but all other students in good academic standing will be offered admission to George Washington, and all degrees thereafter will be awarded from George Washington.