Mount Washington/Hesser College bites the dust

For quite awhile, it seemed like you couldn't turn on a radio or TV in New England and not get blasted with advertisements for Hesser and then Mount Washington College.

Another for-profit down the tubes.

Online College Degree - Find Your Degree Program at Mount Washington College

 

MANCHESTER — Citing declining student enrollment, officials with Mount Washington College announced Tuesday the school has stopped accepting new students and will close its Manchester campus in April 2016.
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The decision comes a year after school trustees shut down Mount Washington College (MWC) campuses in Nashua and Salem, consolidating all student and faculty at the Queen City campus.

“The Mount Washington College Board of Trustees has made the difficult decision to teach out its programs and eventually close the College,” said Stephen White, a spokesman for Mount Washington College (formerly Hesser College) and the Kaplan Education group, which purchased Hesser in 2000. - See more at: Mount Washington College in Manchester to close | New Hampshire


Mount Washington College in Manchester to close | New Hampshire

 

Probably one of the reasons for their collapse is that Granite State College sprouted up almost next door, a state school (no worries about legitimacy) with cheaper tuition.

 

I saw this on their website a few weeks ago when I wanted to check in on their competency-based programs. Those programs were actually pretty cheap similar to most other competency-based programs.

 

Looks like a fairly limited set of offerings in terms of areas of concentration. I find it interesting that there are still schools like this with limited offerings blasting the local area with radio and TV ads, and failing, while schools like AMU/APU sit quietly off to the side offering very affordable tuition, a wide range of programs and, at least in my experience, a well educated faculty.

Maybe APUS doesn't bring in that much of a profit. Maybe they are really failing financially and we just can't see it. Or maybe the market for education has shifted and we are seeing schools refusing to give up the "old model" dying of old age while the new model takes hold.