College-USA.org will be watching out for any warning signs of U.S. college closures and inform you first hand.
This time, it is Chicago State University, (a public school with a student population over 4,000), may close soon for good. On February 26, 2016, the school sent out layoff notices to all 900 employees. This is sad news but it is not a surprise.
We have seen some state-supported and private colleges start to suffer since 2007 when the worldwide economy started to slow down. The schools who could not make enough profits to sustain have been or will be forced to shut down or merge with others. A report by Moody’s Investor Service predicts “Small College Closures to Tripple by 2017.” The report stated:
Closures among four-year public and private not-for-profit colleges averaged five per year from 2004-14, while mergers averaged two to three. The closure rate will likely triple by 2017, while the merger rate will more than double, according to the report. Still, schools affected by both measures will remain below 1% of the 2,300 four-year, not-for-profit private and public colleges.
According to U.S. Department of Education (DoE), U.S. higher education institutions at 5,368 locations have been closed during 2006-2016. These include domestic and foreign locations. Below is a table generated from the official data provided by DoE. DoE updates its CLOSED SCHOOL SEARCH PAGE monthly.
[supsystic-tables id=’12’]
I think most of those schools are not accredited.
Ariel,
Actually, many of the small liberal arts colleges in the U.S. are accredited and prestigious. Due to the sharp decrease in their enrollments, they may have become financially struggled schools.
Do you know where to find the accredited colleges and universities in the U.S.? Or where can I find the most updated list of U.S. colleges and universities?
Hi VA,
The U.S. Department of Education has a web page for searching accredited colleges.https://www.usacollegex.com/wp-admin/edit-comments.php#comments-form
Link: http://ope.ed.gov/accreditation/Search.aspx
Good luck with your search.
Amazing to see more than 5,000 schools closed in the past 10 years.
True but sad. It has been like this for more than 10 years.
It is getting hard to compete in the market for higher education.