Due to a number of factors, both private high schools and public and private colleges and universities are closing at an alarming pace. You may not realize it, but since 2016, nine Massachusetts colleges have closed or merged, according to Higher Ed Dive. In terms of Boston-area high schools, Mount Alvernia High School, The Cambridge Matignon School, and Bishop Connolly High School have all recently announced closures.
We are far from the end of this trend. The population of high school and college students continues to drop compared to the acceleration of it during our own college years. Colleges that expanded during our college years are no longer seeing similar enrollment numbers. Many small private colleges are seeing the accessibility and cost of community colleges lure their usual freshman base.
Private high schools, especially parochial ones that used co-education as a way to boost their enrollment base, are struggling with similar enrollment trends and fewer families in a financial position to attend.
As a parent, what do you do when you receive notice that your child’s school or college is closing? Having worked on a college merger in 2018, I saw firsthand the panic and difficulties a closure or merger can cause students and families. What should you do during this hectic and upsetting time?
Try not to panic in front of your child.
This is really hard advice to give. In most instances, your child is going to have big feelings about their school’s closure — as they should. Think of the closure as the Big Bad Wolf, and you are your child’s house of brick. You have to be a stable, safe space for them to process these feelings and help them make the big decisions that come with this. Yes, you will also panic, but if you can do so away from them, it is for the best. Panic feeds on panic, and you will only make them feel more tumultuous.
If you can help it, don’t get angry at the staff.
School closure decisions are very rarely made by your school’s teachers, faculty, or the person answering the telephone. They are made by a CFO, a president, a board of trustees, a head of school, or, sometimes, by a governmental agency. A frontline person like a teacher, counselor, or academic advisor not only had no say in the decision, they’re also in the process of losing their own job. They are suffering the same turmoil you are — while also trying to guide students like your own through the upheaval. It is a frustrating situation for everyone, and those who didn’t make the decision to close don’t deserve the ire you have for the decision-makers.
Gather every piece of information possible.
Even if you think you know what you’ll do next, go to every event or meeting, and take every bit of information your closing school provides. “Take advantage of the extra resources and opportunities that come your child’s way during this process so you can feel good about making the transition,” said my former colleague Darcy Dubois, who was the director of residence life at Wheelock College during their merger with BU.
This is even the case if your child’s degree/major is going to be eligible for a teach-out (aka, the school has contacted an institution with the same program and ensured that students in the program will be accepted so they can finish it, or the school is going to stay open in a way that allows for students to finish). Go to every session and examine all options being given to you, even if they initially do not appeal to your student. You want every piece of information and know all the paths possible.
“Many colleges and universities want to do right by the students affected in a college closing,” said Dubois. “Take advantage of this to find your child the next best fit for them.”
Take note of who to contact after the school closes.
If the school is closing outright and not being acquired or merged, they will provide their records to an institution that will manage them going forward. This is something that both closing high schools and colleges do.
Even after you graduate from high school or undergrad, you may still need this info. For example, my best friend’s college closed after her graduation. A few years later, when she needed transcripts for graduate school, she contacted the school that took over the records.
Understand your current financial aid status.
Keep track of the financial aid resources you or your child used during their time at the closing/merging school. You will need that information when you meet with financial aid staff at potential new institutions, even if that institution is one that the closing school is working with. (During those initial meetings, the potential school may not have financial aid records yet.)
Also, if you attended a for-profit school and it closed suddenly, you will want to keep track of any loans your child took out to attend. There have been times when the federal or state government has intervened to have those loans forgiven.
Stay strong.
Keep telling yourself that your child is going to find a landing place, because they are going to. It will be a process, and there will be tears. This is not an easy situation for any student, but with attention, persistence, and patience, there is a way through.
