Katherine Anderson from Texas traveled to Philadelphia last year to attend a college program she couldn't find anywhere else, combining music, entrepreneurship and technology. Two weeks ago, she received the amazing news about the university Close Within days.
The closure of the University of the Arts left her and 1,300 other students scrambling to find somewhere to go or something to do.
By the time the school announced its closure, many colleges had already suspended fall admissions. Anderson was accepted into a music industry program at nearby Drexel University, which she said wasn't a perfect fit, but “is the next best thing, I guess.”
“With everything going on, I felt a lot of pressure to make a decision as quickly as possible,” Anderson said. She is now suing the University of the Arts.
More colleges are closing across the country as they deal with steep enrollment declines, the result of shifting demographics and climate change. Effects of the epidemic. Lockdowns in recent years have left tens of thousands of students in limbo – and at increased risk of never finishing their degrees.
Nationally, private colleges are closing at a rate of about two per month, according to the State Higher Education Executives Association.
Before its closing was announced, UArts, as it is often called, had trained musicians, artists, dancers and designers in Philadelphia for nearly 150 years. The school suffered from declining enrollment and said it faced “significant and unexpected expenses” that led to its closure. Several state and local investigations are underway into how the university suddenly ran out of money.
“We have not yet received an answer to that question,” Lynette Kuhn, a senior official with the Pennsylvania Department of Education, said Friday in an online information session for University of the Arts parents and students. Kuhn was responding to one of many questions posed by frustrated students about what university officials knew about its precarious finances, and what they did about it.
“We understand that you, the students…are facing an impossible set of circumstances, with frustration that expands beyond measure,” Heather Perfetti, president of the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, an accrediting agency, said at the same hearing. “We all believe that no academic journey should involve this kind of extreme and sudden disruption.”
Drummer Adam Machado, 18, came to the University of the Arts from New York's Hudson Valley so he could study a range of styles, including jazz and contemporary, in a major city. He received a $32,000-a-year scholarship, and it's not clear if any other schools will match that. But he also wonders if he'll find the same curriculum, sense of community and ability to follow gigs in both New York and Philadelphia, where he performed Wednesday night with a band called Kids That Fly.
He feels sad “not just me, but 1,000 other artists (who) are without a home.”
Like many classmates who went through the grueling college search process just a year ago, he's not sure what to do next.
“You don't really know where to start,” said student Cyrus Nasib, 18.
“It's very mind-blowing,” said Nassib, a theater student who had just signed a lease for an apartment near the college campus, as his parents are moving from the Philadelphia suburbs to the West Coast. “It kind of saps your motivation to do anything.”
Arts college enrollment has fallen by about half since 2009. Nationally, the number of college students in the United States had been declining steadily for years before the pandemic led to a sharp decline in enrollment. The schools' financial woes have been further exacerbated by the botched implementation of a new federal financial aid model, which has raised concerns that hundreds of thousands of students will be forced out. Give up college completely.
The University of the Arts has made arrangements with six colleges and universities to receive UArts students and help them complete their degrees. Formal agreements with six other schools are subject to review by the school's accrediting agency.
But disruptions caused by college closures have a history of disrupting students' education.
Nationally, as many as half of students whose campuses have closed are not resuming their studies, according to the Association of State Higher Education Executives, which surveys its data for both nonprofit and for-profit schools, including two-year colleges. Other students lose credits or have to spend more to enroll elsewhere.
Democratic state lawmakers held a hearing Monday on closing the University of the Arts, while the Philadelphia City Council plans to hold its own hearing later this month.
“It raises a lot of red flags,” Councilman Mark Squilla said. “How can the board not be aware of the financial situation and then say, 'We just found out at the last minute that we can't get any money?' Have they already been exploited to the max? Did they have a line of credit that they could no longer borrow from? Did the banks shut them down? You know, no one answers all these questions.
Film major Ian Callahan Kenna, who transferred by bus to the University of the Arts, has been dealing with bouts of severe anxiety — not least because the college already has thousands of dollars in federal aid for the fall semester. He has joined a potential class action lawsuit against the school.
He said he was very disturbed by how quickly it happened.
“The fact that they acted like everything was normal, that we were a thriving institution just a few weeks ago, and now all of a sudden they have $40 million in the tank and they had to close their doors,” he said, referring to one bank. Estimating the imperfection, “It's very annoying.”