Last weekend, Northwestern College – a for-profit college that specializes in allied health education – closed rather unceremoniously, leaving several hundred students in a bind. The proximate cause of Northwestern College’s demise was financial. The Department of Education placed it on a special monitoring status that requires the school to front its students their financial aid and seek reimbursement afterward – a process that can delay the school’s income by 45 days or more.
I’ll be honest; nobody – except maybe the affected students and employees – cares when a for-profit school goes belly-up. In Northwestern College’s case, the school had operated for 122 years, but could not sustain itself from the withering impact of fiscal monitoring.
People care only slightly more when a community college goes off the rails. In the past year, half of Wisconsin’s 13 community colleges have shut down, victimized mostly by the state’s plan to save them.
(“I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”)
Wisconsin’s approach to salvation merged its community colleges with its primary competitors, the state universities – much like what the State of Connecticut did last year. The move is not working out in Wisconsin; it’s too early to know if consolidation is working in Connecticut.
Eastern Gateway Community College in Steubenville, OH initially expected to close its doors on June 30, but received a small, mostly pointless reprieve in May. Now, the school will hold its last graduation on August 10, and will close its doors for good (?) on October 31.
The October 31 date for EGCC is likely solid, since the school’s accreditation expires November 1, and the EGCC administration has already said that it does not have the resources to address the Higher Learning Commission’s non-negotiable concerns.
Financial aid sanctions await public community colleges
In Wisconsin, the community colleges are being eaten alive by local technical and trade schools, whose missions and target audiences overlap. Occupational education is expensive to deliver, so universities are probably not inclined to make the needed investments to keep occupational education programs fresh. Additionally, universities probably don’t have any interest in perpetuating competition between themselves and community colleges for transfer students. The first two years at a university are extremely lucrative, and universities would rather find a way to provide financial aid rather than admit students as transfers.
The moral of the story here is that if you want to keep your doors open, you better learn how to compete.
The problem for community colleges – especially those that issue certificates (in large volume) – will come home to roost in 2026. At that time, community colleges will need to demonstrate their certificate students’ abilities to outearn the average high school graduate. For those schools who cannot prove that more than half of the students in each individual certificate program can beat the minimum standard consistently (in 2 of every 3 years), the penalty is harsh: federal financial aid will not be available to those programs.
The moral of the story here is: if you want to act like a for-profit school, the Department of Education will happily treat you like one.
Food for thought.
Photo Credit: .waldec
