Dive Brief:
- Drake College of Business will close its doors July 31, ending a 130-year history that began when the college was known as the Jersey City Business School.
- Inside Higher Ed reports that the for-profit college is planning a teach-out process to allow currently enrolled students at its Newark and Elizabeth campuses the chance to complete their programs, but its accreditor has yet to see the full plan.
- Drake instituted dramatic tuition increases over the last decade and served a quickly growing student population before media reports showed it was aggressively recruiting students from homeless shelters, and its student loan default rates were among the highest, according to the article.
Dive Insight:
Drake is the latest in a string of for-profit colleges to close their doors. Corinthian Colleges displaced roughly 16,000 students when it ceased operations in April. Education Management Corporation followed early in May, announcing it would close 15 campuses and displace about 5,400 students just as Career Education announced it would cease operations at more than a dozen campuses, halting the education of about 8,600 students. Drake’s closure won’t affect as many students as any of these other closures, but it does add fuel to the fire of opposition against for-profit institutions that is already getting a boost from the Democratic presidential primary campaign.
