How do you know if a college is going to close?

The answer to that question is complex and ambiguous.  Sweet Briar in Virginia said it would close in June.  Then the alumni rallied, advocates went to court, and now it is remaining open at least for the foreseeable future.  On the other hand, Marian College in New England, which also announced its closing last spring, seems to be staying on track for the cliff.
http://chronicle.com/article/How-Can-You-Tell-When-a/231285/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

As I've noted recently in this space, my tracking some years back of the trials and tribs of tiny Hiwassee College down South persuaded me that it's harder to kill a college than one of the walking dead.

At that time, the accrediting agency was trying to close the college's doors for financial reasons.  But, as with Sweet Briar, a court intervened and today Hiwassee is certainly alive, if not necessarily well.
http://hiwassee.edu/


Like Clay Christensen of Harvard Biz School, I am convinced that there will be a major shakeout in private higher education in the next decade or so.  We are already seeing such a shakeout in the for-profit sector of higher ed... for some of the same reasons and for some differrent one.  And we all know, even if we only admit it in the dark of night in our lonely beds, what's wrong with non-profit higher education: we are overbuilt and we cost too much.  

Our faculty --- or the cost of instruction, euphemistically --- costs too much and teaches too little.  We have masked this ugly truth for decades by exploiting adjuncts and TAs.  Now both groups are being rapidly organized.

Our facilities have morphed from campuses to country clubs.  Everyone shares the guilt for this, including parents and students with high expectations.  "Lazy rivers", climbing walls and all manner of other amenities supplement ever-more-plush residence halls and ever-grander athletic facilities.

Who pays?  Students who take on loan debt, placing a mortgage on their diplomas, predominantly.  Adjuncts and TAs who by and large still are not fairly compensated as employment categories across our sector. Staff below the level of senior management, who also are often and increasingly underpaid and over-burdened.

Yes, it is hard to predict which colleges are going off the precipice next.  But I have no doubt that the lemmings are marching to the cliff.