Thread: 25 U.S. colleges closed, 35 merged since 2008

ByCHIP REIDCBS NEWS March 31, 2015, 7:00 PM

​​Closing of historic Va. women's college signals turmoil for higher education

SWEET BRIAR, Va. -- In the hills of Central Virginia, Sweet Briar College has been educating young women for more than a century. But for students, like sophomore Jordyn Elliott, that will end this spring when the school shutters its campus for good.

"I have a half-finished scrapbook of memories, and just knowing that it's not going to be there, it's devastating," said Elliott.

• Read: Students go on student loan strike

For the school's nearly 700 students, there was no warning before President Jimmy Jones announced that the college of their dreams was running out of money.


Sweet Briar College President Jimmy Jones

CBS NEWS

"Other than the funerals I have had to officiate at, this was by far the hardest thing I could ever imagine myself doing as a president," said Jones.Jones told me there's nothing anyone could have done to save the school. The college's endowment is $85 million but Jones says it would take closer to $250 million to keep the doors open. He cites the growing cost of awarding financial aid, tens of millions of dollars needed to maintain the 3,200 acre campus, and paying down the school's debt.

Since 2008, 25 other colleges have faced similar difficulties and also shut down; 35 have had to merge.

Jones says higher education is in serious trouble, challenged on every single front.

"I think the whole of American higher education is on the cusp of a state of flux that we have never seen ever," said Jones.

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The challenges include the soaring cost of tuition - a chronic problem in higher education today; declining enrollment; suffocating student debt; and competition from inexpensive online schools.The college's students have been talking with other schools about transferring -- and making sure they don't get burned again. First-semester senior Comora Littlejohn was that close to graduating.


Comora Littlejohn, left, Jordyn Elliott, middle, Jona Cumani, right

CBS NEWS

"I cried immediately because I said, 'wow I had one semester left and that's being taken away from me,'" said Littlejohn.But there is an effort to save Sweet Briar. On Monday the county attorney asked the judge to block to school's closing and many graduates and students say they're not giving up.

"The gloves have come off, we're fighting for our school now," said sophomore Jordyn Elliott.

But a knockout punch had better come fast. The final day of classes is just over a month away.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/closing-...her-education/

Here's how many colleges have closed in the past 25 years

• PETER JACOBS

• MAR. 12, 2015, 1:50 PM

With the closing of Sweet Briar College last week, many people in higher education fear this is a sign of what's to come, with more and more schools potentially shutting their doors for good.

However, even if several colleges close this academic year, it still wouldn't be unusual. Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics, we've put together a chart showing how many four-year colleges have closed over the past 25 years.

The numbers appear to fluctuate year to year, from a high of 10 closings to a low of zero.

Check out the chart below:

Mike Nudelman/Business Insider

Most of the schools included here are private, nonprofit four-year colleges, although a handful are public four-year colleges. The chart does not includes mergers between two or more colleges — just colleges that have closed.

While there doesn't appear to be a visible trend in the above chart, a 2013 Vanderbilt University study found that the average number of private four-year colleges that have closed or were acquired every year had recently doubled, according to Bloomberg.

It's also important to note that while the chart currently looks like this, with no clear trend, this could change in the next few years. If enrollment trends and high deficits cause more colleges to close, there may be higher numbers of schools shuttering their doors than ever before.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/colle...#ixzz3W1B72ToA