Evidence first.
Claims kept bounded.
College Closure Watch organizes official, primary-source, and clearly labeled reported evidence. It does not rank colleges, guarantee stability, or publish unsupported closure predictions.
What counts as evidence
- Official federal records: Federal Student Aid, NCES/IPEDS, College Scorecard, and DAPIP.
- Official state or accreditor actions: authorization, accreditation, show-cause, probation, withdrawal, and teach-out notices.
- Institutional primary sources: board minutes, catalogs, formal announcements, and teach-out plans.
- Published reporting: credible journalism can document an event when a primary notice is unavailable. These records retain the publication and link and are labeled as reporting—not official records.
Different events stay different
- Institution closure
- A dated cessation recorded by Federal Student Aid or another authoritative regulator.
- Primary location
- An FSA OPEID8 record ending in 00. Branch and additional-location records remain separate.
- Degree-granting match
- A closed primary location reconciled to a historical Scorecard/IPEDS record whose degree classification is associate degree or higher.
- Program closure
- A documented discontinuation with a named program and effective date.
- Campus or teaching-location closure
- A named location ends instruction while the parent institution continues. It is excluded from institution-closure totals.
- Program disappearance signal
- A program no longer observed in IPEDS completions or awards data. This is a research lead, not confirmation of closure.
Signals are not predictions
Review priority counts distinct evidence categories, not repeated records. Current inputs include federal cash monitoring, a financial-responsibility score below 1.5, a historical letter of credit, substantial enrollment decline, named workforce reductions, and current public institutional-accreditor actions.
Workforce reductions and accreditation actions are reasons to review the linked evidence; neither establishes that an institution will close. Missing data is never treated as evidence of stability.
Publication requires a dated, linked action
A program enters the tracker only when a source identifies the institution, named program or group, action type, action or effective date, and evidence URL. Suspensions, enrollment pauses, teach-outs, accreditation withdrawals, campus actions, and closures are stored as distinct events.
Official regulator and accreditor actions are the preferred layer. Institutional announcements and credible published reporting are included with their evidence type visible; an accreditation withdrawal is never automatically labeled a program closure.
Records can be challenged
Correction requests should identify the record, disputed field, proposed correction, and a primary supporting source. Material corrections preserve the review date and evidence used.
What this tracker cannot establish
Official datasets have reporting lags, inconsistent historical coverage, changing identifiers, and sector-specific definitions. Accreditation information in DAPIP is reported by agencies and is not audited by the Department. Historical matching is disclosed rather than silently filled.