The Chronicle approximated the number of displaced students associated with each closed institution using the most recent data reported by those institutions to the U.S. Department of Education prior to closure. Institutions were analyzed regardless of their degree-granting status or participation in Title IV federal financial-aid programs. Unless otherwise noted, annual figures rely on counts of all unique students (undergraduate and above) who enrolled at an institution in the United States or Puerto Rico any point during a 12-month period ending in the summer of an academic year. This was done to compensate for institutions with nontraditional academic calendars.
Certain institutions were not included in this analysis if the gap between closure and the reporting of relevant data was greater than two years.
The Chronicle’s universe of closed institutions is derived from three datasets: data crosswalks maintained to support the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard, the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), and the Closed School Search File maintained as part of the Postsecondary Education Participants System (PEPS).
Closure dates are cultivated from the directory datasets generated annually by the National Center for Education Statistics, per survey responses from institutions of higher education. This analysis used directory files generated for survey years 2000 to 2017. Institutions that transitioned from a previous identification code to a new one were filtered out from the final product.
If multiple and divergent closure dates were reported for a single unique UNITID, the most recently submitted response(s) was used for this analysis, with other data points being ignored.
The Chronicle supplemented IPEDS closure data with data from PEPS, which is maintained by the Office of Federal Student Aid.
Federal Student Aid relies on its own directory codes: OPEIDs. However, one institution code (UNITID) can be associated with multiple campus location IDs (OPEIDs). In order to confirm the closure of more institutions, The Chronicle first had to confirm that all the campus OPEIDs associated with those institutions had closed.
Annual crosswalks are generated by the Department of Education as part of its College Scorecard effort. Closure dates, from IPEDS, were joined with a multiyear College Scorecard crosswalk dataset (in this case, a compendium of IDs collected by the Education Department from 2000 to 2016) using the UNITID field. Closure dates, from PEPS, were joined using the OPEID field.
Within the crosswalk UNITID field, those cells assigned “no matches” were eliminated. To narrow the portfolio of work further, OPEID fields were assigned a corresponding “Status” tag (CLOSED or OPEN) based on the PEPS or IPEDS “closure date” join. If there was disagreement between PEPS or IPEDS on the matter of closure year or closure, preference was given to the more recent event.
Additionally, OPEIDs associated with more than one UNITID were reviewed for clarification or elimination.
If the number of OPEIDs associated with UNITIDs tagged “CLOSED” matched the total number of OPEIDs associated with UNITIDs, the institution (UNITID) was deemed to have closed.
Likewise, if campuses (and corresponding OPEIDs) associated with an institution were reported to have closed in multiple years, the institution was deemed to be closed in the year that the final campus associated with the UNITID was reported closed.
