Rest in Peace: College Closings

I always get Olin and Elon mixed up.

There’s also Minerva, though they’re not traditional.

Plenty in Florida, with several in Central Florida. On the Public side, Florida Polytechnic University in Lakeland enrolled it’s first students in 2014. UCF is opening a downtown Orlando campus. Valencia College (community college supporting the Greater Orlando area) opened it’s Lake Nona Campus within the last 10 years.

On the private side, Full Sail University falls just under 30 years in its current location, and it seems to have expanded significantly over the last 10 years. Adventist University of Health Sciences was founded in 1992 (renamed in 2012 from Florida College of Health Sciences).

None of these are necessarily greenfield projects within the last 30 years (they all grew out of other educational institutions), but I think they all show a trend with respect to higher education institutions aligning to population shifts, adjusting to cost pressures (more growth with public universities and CCs), and focusing on majors that are in demand by employers.

Florida polytechnic is apparently growing in popularity from what I hear. We are out of state and are possibly thinknig about it.

2001 Soka University
2002 CSU Channel Islands
2005 UC Merced
2010 Moreno Valley College, Norco College
2015 Clovis Community College

Many state schools have opened branches of their schools, which grow into larger schools.

Shout out to JD Harmeyer and Full Sail.

Sorry, couldn’t help myself, this is only the second time I have heard of Full Sail. :slight_smile:

The College of St. Joseph, Rutland, Vermont, might be on the brink of closing. A all-campus meeting is scheduled for this afternoon (April 30) to discuss this possibility. The school recently had fewer than 400 students.

See the following Rutland Herald news article:
https://www.rutlandherald.com/articles/college-of-st-joseph-faces-potential-closure/

Below are links to two Rutland (VT) Review news articles about the potential closing of the College of St. Joseph in Rutland, Vermont. The first article is about yesterday’s meeting that college trustees canceled but was nonetheless informally held:

http://www.rutlandherald.com/articles/anger-and-pleas-mark-boisterous-csj-meeting/

The second article is about the CSJ’s $5 million endowment having been whittled down to about $500,000:

http://www.rutlandherald.com/articles/college-explains-how-5m-endowment-dwindled/

The State of Connecticut’s 20-year-old Distance Learning Consortium will close due to budget cuts. View the following Inside Higher Ed link:

https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2018/05/04/connecticut-distance-learning-organization-plans-close-after-20

Trustees of the College of St. Joseph (Rutland, VT) vote to keep the college open. See the following news article from the Rutland Herald:

http://www.rutlandherald.com/articles/csj-will-stay-open/

Bacone College:
http://ktul.com/news/local/the-future-of-bacone-college-could-be-in-jeopardy
http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/news/bacone-college-doors-to-be-closed-monday/article_c3c1e246-530a-11e8-96b9-f33a8eaa0619.html
https://www.kjrh.com/news/local-news/bacone-college-suspending-operations-for-2-weeks

UMass Boston Faculty Council votes no confidence for president of UMass system.

The University of Massachusetts at Boston’s Faculty Council voted no confidence in the system’s president and Board of Trustees on Monday, following the purchase of Mount Ida College by the flagship campus, in Amherst.

The Amherst campus announced plans last month to acquire the campus of the small, private college, which had shut down. Critics at Boston objected that the flagship was being given financial preference over the Boston campus, which is about 10 miles away from Mount Ida.

Link if you happen to have a access to The Chronicle: https://www.chronicle.com/article/UMass-Boston-Faculty-Votes-No/243415?cid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en&elqTrackId=3831e521969b4de59801c358d78a8d96&elq=2e30482d0eb646a39bf3ca57e29e55ec&elqaid=19075&elqat=1&elqCampaignId=8633

Another one down, another one down, another one bites the dust…

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Another-Small-College/243449

Marylhurst U.

Marylhurst’s closing is also reported in an Inside Higher Ed article, as linked here:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/05/18/another-college-marylhurst-closes-one-not-northeast-or-midwest

Morthland College, a Christian college in West Frankfort, Ill., now with fewer than 200 students, is closing down. See the following article from Inside Higher Ed:

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/05/29/small-christian-college-announces-it-will-close

And from the Southern Illinoisan:

http://thesouthern.com/news/local/communities/westfrankfort/morthland-college-investigated-by-state-federal-agencies-fined-millions-over/article_0bd62e4f-af67-559c-b277-f863255d4f52.html

New England College, Henniker, N.H., and New Hampshire Institute of Art, with campuses at Manchester and Peterborough, will merge by Oct. 1, 2018. NHIA, with 2,000 students, will be absorbed by 2,800-student NEC. See the following links to articles:

http://www.concordmonitor.com/NEC-and-NHIA-to-merge-17827893

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/05/30/2-new-hampshire-colleges-announce-plans-merge

How about that? I visited both NEC and NHIA on the same 11-campus New Hampshire counselor tour a few years back. It was tough to see how the small liberal arts colleges distinguished themselves – NEC, Colby-Sawyer, and Franklin Pierce seemed to be competing for similar students.

Valparaiso (Ind.) Law School is on course to “gift” itself to Middle Tennessee State University, according to the following article form Inside Higher Ed:

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/06/25/valparaiso-law-school-may-move-tennessee

An accreditor has placed four south educational institutions on probation, increasing their chances of becoming failed institutions:

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2018/06/25/southern-accreditor-places-4-institutions-probation