Do The Regulators Enough To Alerts The Students On College Closures?

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Image Credit: USA Today

In years gone by, there has been an unsettling trend in the higher education sector: more and more universities are shutting their doors for good. These sudden closings usually take place without much notice giving students a hard time in deciding what they are going to do with their lives at school. The repercussions are vast; involving not only the learners but also the teaching staff as well as the local community. Therefore it brings us to a vital question; have the regulators provided enough warnings concerning to college closure?

Closer Look At The Rising Tide Of College Closures
Various factors account for the wave of college closures experienced today. It is significant enrollment decline, poor financial management along with high tuition costs have been part of this phenomenon that has disturbing effects for a long time. A major part of private colleges are weak due to lack of endowment funds and resources that help them withstand any financial challenges. However, the existing problems were worsened by COVID-19 pandemic putting many institutions on the brink.

When an institution closes down suddenly, it often leaves students in a daze trying to grapple with the shocking news. Most of them rush in transferring credit hours from one institution to another only to find themselves losing precious time and money. As such, if a school was already limping along before it had to close its doors forever, some lucky degree seekers may end up with useless qualifications that have no market value whatsoever.

The role played by regulators
State education departments and accreditation agencies among other regulators have a duty of monitoring financial performance as well as academic standards amongst educational institutions. However, there seems to be inadequate provision within their mandate which focuses on informing students about possible future closures.

Accreditation and oversight
While colleges rely on accrediting agencies for monitoring purposes, they tend to give more weight to academic standards than financial ones. Despite having ways of putting schools under review or giving warnings against them usually such actions come too late as they were not implemented when necessary after undergoing scrupulous observations by these bodies. For instance the federal commission might put a certain institution in probation making it not clear if or when this should be communicated to either continuing students or others who are planning on joining the college later on.

The Involvement of State and Federal Governments
Although state governments have a part in regulating institutions of higher learning, the extent to which this is done differs from one state to another. While some states have sophisticated systems for tracking financial transactions tightly, others don’t even seem to care about it at all. Under federal law, meanwhile, the Department of Education can initiate action against institutions that misuse federal funds; but again, it takes time before this process amounts to anything meaningful or proactive.

Warning Systems: What Exists and What’s Needed
At present there are few mechanisms meant for preliminary warnings towards students regarding possible instability within their colleges. Yet these systems often turn out disjointed and inadequate in notifying students.

Student Right-to-Know Act
The Student Right-to-Know Act requires universities or colleges to provide various information related to their operations such as graduation rates as well as financial assistance opportunities for students. Nevertheless according to experts in education policies it does not address at all matters touching on college closure risks.

Lists Of Accreditation Probation
Accreditation agencies keep a record of schools under probation, as this could be a possible sign of concern. Finding or interpreting these lists can be difficult, and many students do not even know they exist.

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State Level Interventions
In some states, there have been established early warning systems for financially troubled schools. For instance Massachusetts has developed “financial dashboard” which monitoring the fiscal health of its private colleges. Nevertheless, widespread implementation of such systems remains unattainable.

The Impact On Students
The absence of timely alerts coupled with opaque information regarding college closures exposes pupils to risks. This may be felt psychologically and financially. Often times, they are about to finish their degrees and get good jobs when they take up hefty student loans assuming that everything will always be fine with their career prospects but when an unexpected closure strikes any hopes go down the drain.

Issues with Credit Transfers
Transferring credits to another school is one of the first hurdles faced by students. Some colleges do not accept transfer credits while others may choose to accept only some of them. As a result, there are cases where students are forced to re-take classes in order to finish their programs on time, or else they delay in graduation thus causing an extra financial burden.

Psychological Effects
A college closure has far reaching psychological consequences. Students could feel betrayed or lost thereby hampering their willpower and influence over what they perform academically. In addition, this brings about periods of uncertainty accompanied by chaos that leads to stress, anxiety and other related problems.

Moving Forward: Suggestions for Getting Better
To safeguard learners better, there are several improvements needed in how authorities oversee and convey the monetary well-being of colleges.

Improved Financial Surveillance
There ought to be a firmer system for maintaining watch over schools’ finances, which will involve regular audits and open reporting. Such information ought to hold a more important place in the evaluations made by accrediting organizations.

Prompt Warning
Authorities have to make necessary amendments on ways of warning students about probable dangers. For example, it may involve compulsory publication of such information on college websites as well as easy access to online databases showing schools’ economic state and accreditations’ situations.

The Federal and State collaboration
One of the ways to deal with the challenge of maintaining consistency in terms of monitoring and support is through greater cooperation between federal and state regulators. In turn, this helps in identifying at-risk institutions early enough.

Student Protection Fund
On one hand, student protection funds can be established or improved as a way of providing financial relief for students who are affected by closures thus enabling transfers to other universities without incurring more costs.

Conclusion
Today we are witnessing an alarming trend of increased number of colleges closure that calls for immediate actions from the regulators. For any student to make an informed decision about what they want to study, it is important that there is readily available information about their institution’s financial status. In order to warn students appropriately, regulators, accrediting agencies, as well as state and federal governments must team up together in order to provide adequate supervision and communication with regard to the potential collapse of those colleges which are at risk.