The first step to a survival strategy: acknowledging that there’s a problem
DUDLEY, Mass. — It was in his part-time job as a campus tour guide that Jared Maymon first heard prospective students and their parents asking not just about the food, the dorms or the required courses but about whether his college would be around long enough for them to experience any of those things.
Several other New England institutions had abruptly closed because of falling enrollments, growing debt and other problems. And Nichols College, where Maymon is a junior double-majoring in economics and finance, fit the same profile: small and with a comparatively low endowment and a student body drawn mostly from a few surrounding states.
“It was, like, 18 months ago, and I think [Mount Ida College, near Boston] closed — somewhere around there,” said Maymon, taking a break between classes in the Nichols student center. “And that’s when it kind of popped into my head and I was, like, ‘Oh, man, is this something that could happen to us?’ ”