In a Reversal, Dowling College Looks to an Education Company to Stay Afloat

Last week Albert Inserra, president of Dowling College, announced that the institution was shutting its doors. Now the long-struggling private college on New York’s Long Island hopes that it can stave off closure if it strikes a deal with Global University Systems, a European company that specializes in providing capital to troubled higher-education institutions and strengthening their recruitment efforts.

Many small, tuition-dependent colleges are struggling to stay financially solvent as they try to reverse falling enrollments and shrink mounting debts. St. Catharine College, in Kentucky, and Burlington College, in Vermont, both recently closed, citing fewer students and growing financial woes. Dowling’s enrollment has dropped by half since 2009, and the college is roughly $54 million in debt, prompting last week’s closure announcement.

But Dowling reversed that declaration on Wednesday, saying it was turning for assistance to Global University Systems, known by the acronym GUS. The company, based in the Netherlands, uses international recruiting and capital investment to buoy colleges, according to its website. Mr. Inserra said the company could help Dowling find and funnel international students onto its campus.

Though no agreement has been finalized, Mr. Inserra said that a partnership would put Dowling on a path to success, increase enrollment in the long term, and provide an example for other private colleges in similarly dire financial straits. But the potential deal carries risks, including the fear that a for-profit company might have undue influence on a nonprofit college.

Mr. Inserra said Dowling administrators and faculty members would maintain control over the college’s direction. Global University Systems did not respond to several requests for comment about how it identifies and then supports the colleges it teams up with.

Finding the Right Fit

By last October, Mr. Inserra knew Dowling needed outside help. The college sought out the Royal Bank of Canada to identify potential partners, and the bank presented Dowling with a list of roughly 80 to 100 options to consider, he said. By January that list was winnowed to seven, and then three, with Global University Systems as one of the final candidates.

Mr. Inserra said the company appealed to him and the Board of Trustees because it could handle taking on a college with Dowling’s amount of debt. And the company’s global reach was impressive: It advertises partnerships with numerous academic institutions around the world, including in Britain, Canada, and Germany. Dowling would appear to be the company’s first major foray into the United States.

Mr. Inserra said Dowling was especially drawn to the potential educational benefits of an influx of international students.

“When you bring international students on campus, it enriches everybody,” Mr. Inserra said. “Wherever they’re from, they want to be part of the U.S. experience. And our students are very engaging in terms of wanting to know more about them.”

With GUS’s help, Mr. Inserra hopes to attract several hundred to a thousand global students to Dowling by September 2017. He also wants to raise domestic enrollments but recognizes that will be difficult in the immediate aftermath of the potential closure announcement. Hundreds of current students have requested transcripts, indicating they may transfer. Mr. Inserra said he understands their concerns, but he hopes Dowling can gain back their trust.

Financial details are still being hashed out, Mr. Inserra said, but based on current discussions, Global University Systems would fill two or three seats on the Board of Trustees — which currently has nine members — and give advice on financial and academic matters. Dowling administrators and faculty members would still have significant input on the direction and future development of the college, Mr. Inserra said.

“We want [GUS] involved in those decisions, but ultimately those decisions are ours,” he said.

A Potential Gamble

Partnerships between colleges and corporations can face hazards, and reports have surfaced about troubles with lecturers at one of the company’s institutions. Instructors at the London School of Business and Finance, a for-profit business school owned and founded by the company, have complained that the institution is structured poorly, lacks resources, and keeps disruptive students around to generate income, according to The Guardian, although the school has denied those allegations. The institution also lost its permission to recruit and teach students from outside the European Union in January, forcing international students to leave the campus, according to the BBC.

Some experts have voiced concerns about the danger of doggedly pursuing international students to fill enrollment slots.

Small Colleges, Big Problems

Adam Niklewicz for The Chronicle

Recent articles from The Chronicle about the financial challenges facing small colleges:

Small Colleges Bank on Fund Raising to Survive

The Truth-Teller: Once a Small-College Champion, Now a Tough Critic

Small Colleges Risk a Turn to Private Capital to Build Housing

Survival at Stake

Small Colleges’ Closure Rate Could Triple by 2017, Moody’s Says

The Painful Lessons of Sweet Briar and Cooper Union

“It can be a gamble,” Kevin Kinser, an associate professor at the University at Albany who studies proprietary education, wrote in an email. “It can work very well, but keeps the college from building its own capacity in the long run.”

That is not to say that colleges should never pursue bailout agreements with corporate partners.

“If the alternative is the college’s demise, then that’s a pretty compelling argument,” Mr. Kinser wrote.

Philip G. Altbach, founding director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College, was unfamiliar with the specifics of Global University Systems. But he said companies often oversell the reputation of a college to foreign students in order to “supply warm bodies” to pay tuition.

Mr. Inserra said he was optimistic about Dowling’s future and thinks in a few years other small, private colleges could look to Dowling as an example of what to do when dealing with steep debt and falling enrollment.

“When we get going and we’re successful,” he said, “we’ll actually have people looking to us.”