Dowling College on Long Island announced Tuesday, May 31, that it would be closing its doors this Friday, due to financial troubles. Molloy College will operate a transition counseling center for current Dowling students who won’t be able to finish their degree at the private college.
Dowling’s financial troubles can be traced back to its declining enrollment. In 2010 over 5,000 students were enrolled at the college. This year the school had only about 1,700 students enrolled.
Officials from Dowling said they had been trying to form a partnership that might have saved the school but the president of the school said in a prepared statement that the plan did not work out. “As painful as this announcement is, we want the student body, faculty and alumni to know that we made every effort to form a suitable academic affiliation so that we could keep the college open,” Dr. Albert Inserra said.
Students spent the final week picking up their transcripts which they will need in order to transfer to another school. According to the Dowling website, students will be able to pick up their transcripts at Molloy College on Friday. It was also announced on the website that Summer session courses have been cancelled.
A Molloy College spokesperson said that Dowling approached Molloy to ask them to help facilitate a transition for their students. Molloy, which opened the same year as Dowling 48 years ago agreed to help, and has also accepted an official request from New York State to direct the transition effort.
The transition counseling center, which opened Wednesday June 1, is intended to help provide recommendations to Dowling students based on their specific degree, the Molloy Spokesperson said. Students will be advised to transfer into schools that have the classes they will need to finish their programs. Molloy expects that colleges in the area will work to accommodate Dowling students.
Featured image via Wikipedia.
