Colleges in Dire Financial Straits

[BadWolf]

I was doing a research project today for some other issue, and came across this listing which is interesting (and was very helpful for my needs).

Closed Colleges List

[Ruralguy]

Note that most had enrollment less than 1000 (some under 100!) and none had enrollment over 3000.

Its also interesting to see many in New York, which to New Yorkers isn't hugely surprising since it has an expansive state system, and especially at the high end, has many huge established private schools, but also a number of large middling private schools that have been around for a long time. Just too much dang competition!

Interesting to see that though some parts of the south have a peering of these small colleges, none of them seemed to close during that period (though I think some are still in the danger zone!).


It would be interesting to see of any, say, went from a large enrollment and big endowment to next to nothing in either area. That sort of thin is probably uncommon, but it would be interesting to see if it has happened.

[Puget]

Note that most had enrollment less than 1000 (some under 100!) and none had enrollment over 3000.

It's a wonder many of these sub 1000, even sub 500, enrollment places ever existed, unless that was an abrupt decline right before closing. That would be small even for a high school!

[apl68]

I was doing a research project today for some other issue, and came across this listing which is interesting (and was very helpful for my needs).

Closed Colleges List

Didn't realize that there had been so many.  I don't recall some of them being mentioned here before.  Such as Hussian College--yet another failed art school.

Many of them did indeed experience a dramatic enrollment drop before closing.  Still, most of them were awfully small even at their peak.  I remember some years ago looking up the names of colleges and being surprised at just how many tiny schools existed.  Some of them sounded like pretty neat little places.  A school could get away with being that small back in the days when costs were lower.  In today's world the little schools increasingly just aren't viable.  They may all be gone before many more years.

[dismalist]

I was doing a research project today for some other issue, and came across this listing which is interesting (and was very helpful for my needs).

Closed Colleges List

This list beats anything posted on this thread before. We get some systematic basis for understanding closures. As has been noted upthread, small is not beautiful when it comes to survival of colleges. Minimum efficient scale, and such. My guess in the earlier days of this thread was 3000 students. Likely higher.

College closures are not unique events. They are the result of a declining student population. There are two good ways of adapting to the decline without leaving existing students high and dry. One is to close early, with existing students capable of registering at neighboring colleges. Two is to merge. The article counts mergers as closures, but mergers are a solution to a problem, not a problem in itself.

 

[Hibush]

I don't remember seeing these super-last-minute closures until this year. Both Wells and UArts shut off like a faucet.

Wells didn't make the decision to close at the last minute. The school has been issuing closure warnings for many years, and showing all the outward signs of being close to or at the edge. They surely had various contingency plans in place. They made the strategic decision to announce the closing near the end of the semester. Probably to minimize the amount of time being a zombie school.

[apl68]

I noticed a statistic in the article that BadWolf linked to that close to half of all students enrolled in these colleges at the time of shutdown do not seem to have ended up somewhere else.  I wonder in how many of these cases did having their college close out from under them permanently derail their plans?

[marshwiggle]

I noticed a statistic in the article that BadWolf linked to that close to half of all students enrolled in these colleges at the time of shutdown do not seem to have ended up somewhere else.  I wonder in how many of these cases did having their college close out from under them permanently derail their plans?

That's what I'd guess. Since most of the places were small, and for-profit, that means that the programs available would have been the kind that could appeal to a lot of students but require little or no infrastructure. That's a recipe for a whole lot of people being shuffled through with a piece of paper indistinguishable from the pieces of paper of a zillion others. It attracts people aiming at some kind of "Hail Mary" career plan.

[Ruralguy]

I know that a number of small schools started with very high reputations for being the place where white men (at first, and then for a long time) could go off in isolation and learn how to be the best captains of industry or politician or whatever (which, even in olden times, meant lots of partying punctuated by an occasional interesting lecture or discussion). Now they have to kind of sort of have to still harken to the past (because they had high reputations in the past), but be careful to also say "oh, and now we're open to everybody, and if you don't have money, we'll figure it out!" Much of this is done by growing sports programs (I know many faculty hate hearing that, but that's how "they" do it--sports and a lot of mixing of financial aid solutions).

As noted upthread, for certain numbers of students, it just isn't possible to have the same sort of opportunities as a giant school, whether that means no engineering or no lazy river or no McDonalds or Starbucks or whatever opening right on campus.  Some students and parents don't mind, but for others it really detracts from the experience. 

[treeoflife]

The typology of the institutions that have the biggest challenge is quite clear:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/this-small-college-warned-of-imminent-closure-heres-how-it-kept-the-lights-on

[spork]

I was doing a research project today for some other issue, and came across this listing which is interesting (and was very helpful for my needs).

Closed Colleges List

This list beats anything posted on this thread before.

[. . .]
 

https://collegehistorygarden.blogspot.com/2015/11/college-closures-since-2009.html

[dismalist]

I was doing a research project today for some other issue, and came across this listing which is interesting (and was very helpful for my needs).

Closed Colleges List

This list beats anything posted on this thread before.

[. . .]
 

https://collegehistorygarden.blogspot.com/2015/11/college-closures-since-2009.html

As I was saying, this beats anything posted on the thread before. Excellent!

[Ruralguy]

Its a comprehensive list, but I don't see any financial or enrollment info, though I suppose the IPEDS number could lead to retrieving some of this information.

[methodsman]

https://fsapartners.ed.gov/additional-resources/reports/weekly-closed-school-search-file

You are welcome.
mm

[Hibush]

There should be a comparable list of newly opened universities, if only to show that there is turnover rather than just loss. US News has a feature on some new ones that are nor in dire financial straits. The ones that start with a bad business plan hit the dire financial straits quickly, so we may not notice them.


Statista has the gross number over time. Apparently the 2008 banking crisis enabled a boomlet.