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[W]hen Southern Vermont College announced this week that it would close at the end of the academic year, it was a clear example of a broader trend. Just six weeks earlier, Green Mountain College officials said their institution would also close this year.
The College of St. Joseph and Goddard College are both on probation. Observers worry that either school could be the next to fold.
“What’s happening right now in Vermont is a crisis in higher education,” says Tom Greene. Greene is the president of the Vermont College of Fine Arts and a former commissioner at the New England Commission of Higher Education, the accrediting organization for this region.
Losing accreditation, as Southern Vermont College did, is a “death blow,” Greene says. But accreditors don’t make their decisions lightly: Greene says outside forces are making it difficult for private colleges across New England to make the case that they can stay solvent.
The 18- to 22-year-old population has declined. The value of a college degree is being questioned. And large, online nonprofit colleges can offer degree programs at a fraction of the price of a residential college.
Greene says he doesn’t see obvious ways for small colleges to avoid these pressures. “I think it’s going to get worse,” he says. But he believes it would help for both colleges and state government to better emphasize the value these schools bring to Vermont.
On this week’s podcast, Greene discusses the difficulties facing private institutions across New England. Plus, VTDigger’s education reporter Lola Duffort describes what’s next for these shuttering schools and their surrounding towns.
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Usually we start with like a press conference, public event or something like that. It seems like that’s not really what happens here.
Lola Duffort: No, exactly. Usually, it’s — the college is called to some sort of meeting. Sometimes there’s a meeting before with staff and faculty.
And then they just kind of send out a press release?
Lola Duffort: And then they kind of just send out a press release.
Is there a reason that this sort of happens quietly?
Lola Duffort: I think administrators want to get everything ready and then they want to they want to be the ones to tell students, right? They don’t want students to hear it from someone else. They don’t want students to read it in the paper first. Because obviously this is already going to be pretty traumatic. It’s a really difficult moment. So you know, they want kids to trust them to help them find a way out of this.
Lola Duffort covers education for VTDigger.
Lola Duffort: So this week on Monday, Southern Vermont College in Bennington announced that they were closing at the end of the year. They will get to keep their accreditation through August 31, which is important for, say, a senior that needs to take one last summer course to graduate on time. So anyone who is graduating this year will do so with a fully accredited degree. But of course, if you’re a junior, sophomore or freshman, you’re going to need to find another school.
And this follows an announcement in January from Green Mountain College, who also said that they would be closing at the end of the year, same deal. Accreditation will be allowed to continue through the end of the year so that kids can wrap up what they can.
Southern Vermont College and Green Mountain College — what kinds of schools are these?
Lola Duffort: Southern Vermont College and Green Mountain College are both small private schools. They have little to no endowment, which is pretty critical because that means that they’re basically wholly dependent on tuition and fees for their operating funds. So if your enrollment goes down, you almost immediately have financial difficulties. SVC and GMC, like a lot of colleges that look like them across the country really, but especially in New England, have been seeing very rapid and steep enrollment declines.
Green Mountain College commercial: When you build your own home, you build it to last. You want it to be a welcoming place that will last not just for a generation or two, but for the long haul. When Green Mountain College built its home, we started with an urgent question…
Lola Duffort: So that’s kind of the broader trend: enrollment goes down in the small colleges with no endowments, and immediately you have financial problems. And then other things can make you more fragile, like debt. GMC had quite a bit of debt. So did SVC. SVC also had a few scandals a few years back. So there are forces at play. And these are the kinds of things that can really tip school over the edge.
When you talk about accreditation, what exactly does that mean for these schools?
Lola Duffort: Your average four year school is accredited by a regional accreditor. In New England, it’s the New England Commission of Higher Education. These are private groups, but they are empowered by the federal government to accredit schools. And while accreditation is voluntary, it is necessary in order to receive federal financial aid, which is a pretty critical and basic source of revenue for the schools. And then on top of that, accreditation is a pretty baseline indicator of quality. So if a school is unaccredited, other schools won’t take transfer credits. Those departments might not necessarily be recognized by employers, etc.
So if a college in this category loses their accreditation, that’s kind of the end for them.
Lola Duffort: Right, it’s like, in theory they could go on, but it’s basically the fatal blow.
Gotcha.
Tom Greene: Colleges have always closed, just not with the frequency they’re closing now. At times when you might be more inclined to give a college the benefit of the doubt, knowing particularly with undergraduate institutions that you’re accepting someone you’re going to have for four years, you know, that’s a significant commitment that they’re making. So I think there’s been a tightening everywhere around tolerance for colleges that are that are teetering.
This is Tom Greene. Tom’s the president of the Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier, and until recently, he was a commissioner for the regional accreditor for New England. Lola sat down with him this week to talk about why these colleges keep closing.
Tom Greene: Colleges all die the same way. Colleges die because they lose their accreditation. That is what is the death blow for colleges, because if you lose your accreditation, you lose your financial aid, which makes it almost impossible to recruit students. But also it becomes a public process, and no one wants to enter a school that’s failing. So I would say that that is part of the issue. I don’t think it’s a chicken and egg thing. I think accreditors are doing the best work they can in a challenging environment to sort of assess the different metrics and data that is being presented to them about whether or not a school can can dig yourself out of a hole.
Lola Duffort: And so you think they’re fully aware that as soon as you put, say, a school on probation, even though you give them two years, that by itself can be—
Tom Greene: Having been in those meetings and been part of those discussions and voted on those decisions over the last six years, I can say that it is never done lightly. And it’s done usually with great reluctance. And you have to think about this, because most of us who were in that room are either college presidents or senior college administrators or deans or faculty. These are our peers or colleagues. It’s never a good thing when a college gets into trouble, and it’s a terrible thing when a college closes. So, you know, knowing that the impact of our decisions and what could come from it, I think they’re approached really judiciously.
Lola Duffort: Have you ever seen a college come back from probation?
Tom Greene: Sure. Yeah, I’ve actually seen colleges when I was on the commission come back from probation. It’s challenging, and I think it’s more challenging now than it has been in the past. You know, you have to look at what the root cause of these problems are, and why colleges are struggling, to understand them better. It is a very different landscape now than it was even five to eight years ago.
Lola Duffort: What do you think are the main things that have changed?
Tom Greene: Well, everybody points at demographics. There are just less 18 to 22 year olds. Certainly the demographics in the northeast are a significant obstacle. You know, the only places where 18 to 22 year olds are growing is in the south and southwest. They’re more likely to be students of color. They’re not looking to come to northern New England to go to college. So that’s a real challenge.
I think the idea and value of a college degree and the expense of it is under attack.
The other thing I would say is the rise of monster nonprofit, higher ed, online institutions. Southern New Hampshire University now has over 100,000 students.
Lola Duffort: Wow.
Tom Greene: Arizona State University has probably over 100,000 students in online programs. Western Governors is another one. And in some ways, the disruptive change and impact that they are causing is analogous to what Amazon did, initially, to independent bookstores. Or what, say, Walmart has done to downtowns. You were seeing a different business model where, you know, University of Southern New Hampshire undergraduate degree tuition is around $8,000 or $9,000 a year compared to the $40,000 or $50,000 it takes for a residential experience. And so people are voting with their feet.
Lola Duffort: Yeah, and their wallets.
Tom Greene: And their wallets. But I think what’s happening right now in Vermont is a crisis in higher education. There’s no doubt about it, seeing three schools closed within a period of a year and a half with probably more on the horizon is deeply concerning.
Lola Duffort: Right. What do you think state actors — so the legislature, the governor, I don’t know if AOE has any role to play — but would you like to see those kinds of actors take any action, either to deal with what’s left after a college closes, or to help keep colleges open? Or do you think it’s just a case of, like, we have to step back and let market forces—
Tom Greene: Well, I never think it’s a case of just having to step back and let the market forces do their work. This is the third largest industry in the state. I think one of the challenges — and this is not a critique of anybody in government — is that we tend not to think of colleges as businesses. We think of them as a place where students go. You know, I employ 250 people here. I mean, that’s a significant — if we were to go away, that’s 250 less jobs in Montpelier.
Our students and faculty and staff in direct spending spend over a million dollars downtown here every year. And you think about a tiny little two street downtown, a million dollars is a lot of money going to restaurants and bars and bookstores and clothing shops. And that goes away.
So I think — and this is on the colleges on some level — I think we need to do a better job of educating people about how we exist as employers and the kind of economic impact we have. I think there’s an understanding of it, but not in the same way if we were a — I don’t know, if Vermont was known for high tech, and suddenly a third of the high tech businesses were suddenly closing, I think the attention would be greater on that issue than it is when it’s higher education.
Lola Duffort: If people were paying more attention, what would you want them to do?
Tom Greene: That’s the thing. There aren’t good answers. You know, there isn’t a good government solution to this. So if I were the governor of Vermont, I don’t know what I would do. You know, I certainly would want to know more about it. And I don’t know what tools are available to the governor or the legislature, when they think about higher education institutions closing.
I think in the past that conversation is more been around concerns, like when Burlington College closed, what do we do with student records? And why does the state have to manage the student record process? And why are we on the hook for money, taxpayers on the hook, for an institution closing with rapidity?
Rather than thinking in a broader way as to, why is this industry so important to Vermont? And particularly when you have some of these colleges that are in rural places where they are the only thing in town. That’s true of many of these Vermont institutions. It’s certainly true of Green Mountain, Southern Vermont College, Sterling in Craftsbury, you know. A number schools fit that bill.
And so if institutions were to close then what happens to the economics of that town? And what happens to people in rural areas in Vermont? That’s a significant question.
Lola Duffort: Do you think we’re at the worst part of the crisis? Or do you think it’s going to get worse?
Tom Greene: I think it’s gonna get worse.
Lola Duffort: How much? I mean, do you really think that a third of the schools could close in Vermont?
Tom Greene: Half.
Lola Duffort: Half?
Tom Greene: Yeah. Could. In a short period of time, next two, three, four years. Without some kind of a sea change in how people do business, and how they innovate, and what kind of resources are available to them. I think you’re going to see it. In some cases, closures may look more like mergers or larger institutions taking them over, but I think as many as half of the independent colleges. It’s different with the state colleges because they have state resources and money, where the independent colleges do not. So I think when it comes to private enterprise, you could see as many as half close the next three or four years.
I hope not, by the way. I’m rooting for every one of these colleges to succeed. But I just think there is more to come. Not just in Vermont — you know, New Hampshire’s experiencing it, Massachusetts is experiencing it. But I would say the difference between Vermont and the other states in New England, say, is that higher education — and this may be surprising, but — it is disproportionately important.
Massachusetts has a ton of colleges and universities, most of which are going nowhere, and it has a bunch that are going to close. But the impact of that is very different than it is in a state our size, where you have, like I said, the third largest industry. And you have all these private colleges in small places. So it’s going to be felt deeper. The cuts are going to be deeper in Vermont when colleges get into trouble.
Lola, we’re talking about two relatively small colleges closing their doors. Why is this such a cause for alarm?
Lola Duffort: A really key thing is, these private schools mostly recruit from out of state. So they’re bringing people in to Vermont. And a lot of these people stay, right? So what’s really scary is that they are a casualty of Vermont’s very well documented demographic problem, right? We’re an aging state. And we desperately need more young people to come in. So they’re the first casualty of that. And at the same time, their closure will likely accelerate that dynamic. Because you’ll have your people coming in because of these colleges, and then staying and doing basic things, like paying taxes and shopping downtown, but also starting businesses. And more intangible but really critical things like local music scenes. Or, I often think about the local food scene in Rutland County, which is really vibrant and amazing, and has a lot of links to Green Mountain College.
And that just kind of goes away once those schools go away.
Lola Duffort: That goes away, right.
And then I think you also have to think of the impact on students. They have some credits, but in a lot of ways, they have to start college all over again. You know, have to make new friends, and decide that they want to keep doing this. A really important thing to keep in mind is that the colleges that are in danger of closing do not enroll the same kinds of students that elite schools do. These are kids that are less likely to be affluent and more likely to be struggling academically — not universally, but in general, if you look at student profiles. These kids are already less likely to graduate on time. If your school shuts down and you have to start all over at a different school, that could really give someone that excuse, maybe, not to finish out their degree. It’s hard to imagine that this wouldn’t hurt the graduation rates of that cohort of students. Then you have to think about more kids leaving school with debt but no degree.
What about for SVC? What happens next with this college?
Lola Duffort: What’s happened at both SVC and GMC is that administrators have announced, and are probably still working on, creating more teach-out partners. That’s other colleges that are willing to take those students. Sometimes they waive transfer application fees, or just kind of say, give us some basic information and you’re guaranteed admission. They’re also figuring out who will keep the records.
SVC has named the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts [see correction] as its preferred teach-out partner. So that means that college has basically promised that for most programs, they’ll be able to give SVC students a pretty clear way to finish out their degree in the same program and major for roughly equivalent prices. And then Norwich University and Castletown University, in Vermont, have also agreed to take on SVC students in certain programs.
These colleges are now holding college fairs, which is kind of weird. Where other colleges get to come with their stands and advertise themselves to their students, is kind of a strange thing. I went to GMC, Green Mountain College, a few weeks ago, after they had announced their closure. And I went to the library and there were all these posters up about the upcoming college fair. Which was a little jarring.
Yeah, it’s kind of striking how final the whole thing is. I mean, there’s no coming back from this for either of those schools, right?
Lola Duffort: No. I mean, I should note that there is a group of alums at Green Mountain College that is trying to fundraise and find a way to keep the school open. But they’re not working with the administration, and it does not seem like the leadership at GMC is at all hopeful that that’s going to go anywhere. I mean, maybe they could pull a miracle. And that that is what happened at a college in Virginia. So that’s something that could happen—
But it’s not going to reverse those broader trends that are putting pressure on these schools.
Lola Duffort: No. So maybe a miracle will happen at GMC, but these broader trends are not going away. And it’s worth noting that Goddard in Plainfield is currently on probation from its accreditors, so it has two years to kind of right the ship financially.
But I think we’re going to see more and more colleges fall under extra scrutiny from accreditors, get put on probation or see its accreditation withdrawn, and ultimately close down.
Got it. Thanks Lola.
Lola Duffort: Thanks for having me.
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Correction: The audio version of this story, and a previous version of this transcript, misidentify SVC’s teach-out partner as the Massachusetts College of Fine Arts. The partner is the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts.
