Recession Leaves Smallest Colleges Especially Vulnerable

The country’s smallest four-year colleges are getting an especially harsh economic lesson amid the downturn, the Associated Press reports.

Lacking the state aid that is granted to public universities and the endowments that support larger private universities, institutions such as Vermont’s Sterling College, with unusual curricula and small student bodies, are facing a particularly tough test in the recession.

Nine degree-granting schools closed last year, up from the more typical four in 2007, according to the American Council on Education. Several small Christian institutions are among the recent victims.