It’s hardly alone. At least a dozen independent, regional colleges are on the brink of collapse—mostly in the northeast—and all buckling from the one-two punch of dwindling enrollment and mounting debt. The 2019,” painted a stark reality for America’s educators: Huge swaths of the country’s independent small colleges now face a “merge or perish” reality. The pandemic has only made that problem worse, though its effects are not yet visible. More closures will come soon.
It rarely goes smoothly. In Vermont, Marlboro alums started a petition in a failed effort to stop the sale, joined by somewho called it “a lousy deal.” Similar resistance had more success in New Jersey, where a pair of lawsuits helped scuttle the sale of Westminster Choir College to Kaiwen Education, a Chinese firm, two years ago.
Noah_Kirsch Maybe it’s because they don’t have enough diversity/ethnic classes and women’s studies programs for students to be forced to take.