Pandemic-related declines in enrollment, particularly in hands-on skilled trades courses, have only made things worse for these long-overburdened and underfunded schools.

After announcing in 2012 it was closing its campus Colorado Technical University in Sioux Falls, SD, went mostly online; students say advisers use aggressive sales tactics to get students to enroll and the university pockets their federal aid.

The number of students filling out the Fafsa form has fallen in the pandemic, and the form is used to determine who gets federal Pell Grants, which are aimed at the needy.