The steady trickle of colleges falling is beginning to reveal the effect it’s having on students, especially those who received abrupt notification from their institution. More than 50 public and private nonprofit colleges have closed, merged or announced closures since March 2020, and over half of the students whose schools shut down did not re-enroll elsewhere, Best Colleges reports.
While for-profit colleges have historically been the most frequent type of institution to close, private nonprofits have regularly dominated headlines since the pandemic. Since University Business last reported a college closure (Notre Dame College on Feb. 29), at least four other private non-profit institutions have announced that they, too, are unable to continue operations. And other institutions are clutching their purses: Northland College (Wis.) has decided to significantly downsize after falling short of its $12 million fundraising goals to avoid closure at the end of the academic year. Roughly 41,446 students attending private nonprofits have been impacted by their school closing down since March 2020, per Best Colleges.
However, public colleges are not free from harm. University of Wisconsin system still faces serious financial challenges despite closing one campus and moving two online last October.
As painful as it may be for higher education leaders, stakeholders and alumni to bid farewell to historical institutions, current students and faculty have the most to lose. Nearly 53% of those who experienced a college closure did not re-enroll, and the experience increases their likelihood of defaulting on a student loan. Underresourced students, including Pell Grant recipients and people of color, are the most impacted by closures, considering that those institutions tend to enroll them at a higher rate, according to SHEEO.
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The more abrupt the closure, the more grievous the results
Colleges that close abruptly render their students with a lower likelihood they’ll re-enroll and earn their degree than those that provide students with better-orchestrated correspondence, Best Colleges reports. Regrettably, seven in 10 students enrolled at one of these institutions experienced a sudden closure.
Oak Point University (Ill.) announced it would “halt operations” on April 19. Students received correspondence in late March, less than a month before.
“A lot of people were kind of blindsided by this, our school emailed us yesterday that they’d be closing,” said one nursing student, according to NBC 5 Chicago.
While school administrators notified students that the neighboring Lewis University would accept all transfers, the current faculty was a bigger question mark. Faculty were told they would not receive severance pay, WGN 9 reports.
“I’m going to be honest, I feel violated,” said one anonymous employee to WGN 9. “I feel like no one is thinking of us; we, of course, think about the students, but you are not thinking about your employees.”
