How many college closures are on the horizon?

Higher Ed Dive

Natalie Schwartz

August 9, 2023

In late June, Alliance University’s governing board voted to close the 140-year-old institution at the end of August. The decision came just days after Alliance’s accreditor, Middle States Commission on Higher Education, said it would pull the Christian college’s accreditation, in part over concerns about its finances.

Like many other small colleges, it had been operating in the red for years as it struggled to boost enrollment. To shed some of its mounting debt, Alliance sold its Nyack, New York, campus in 2020, but the move wasn’t enough to erase its financial woes.

By the time Alliance’s board made the call to shut down, more than a dozen nonprofit colleges had also announced during the past year that they were either closing or merging into other institutions.