National Hispanic University in San Jose, Calif., will shut its doors next year after more than 30 years as a four-year college, The San Jose Mercury News reported.
By summer 2015, the institution will cease to exist as a college accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, The San Jose Mercury News reported. This announcement comes several weeks after the education giant placed an admissions moratorium the four-year college.
Laureate Education Inc., a private college chain that purchased the university four years ago, announced the change Wednesday. The education giant purchased National Hispanic University in 2010 with high hopes of boosting its enrollment through Internet classes.
"We made critical and important efforts to expand and make the 'national' in National Hispanic University real," Jonathan Kaplan, chairman of the NHU board of directors and a Laureate official, said in a statement to The San Jose Mercury News.
Kaplan said tens of millions of dollars were invested in the struggling campus' infrastructure, faculty and student support.
Gladys Ato, president of National Hispanic University, said the school will continue to offer classes at the campus until the remaining enrolled students graduate or transfer to other colleges by the summer of 2015.
Since its inception in 1981, National Hispanic University "embodied the dreams of many Latino education and community leaders who desired a college modeled" after historic black colleges and universities, such as Howard University, that produced much of the black leadership in the United States.
However, the school has struggled to raise operating funds and to attract students.
In spring 2013, the school suffered a setback in 2013 when the U.S. Department of Education reduced financial aid for students enrolled in the university's liberal art program. At the time, the federal government was "pulling back such support for degree programs that did not offer good prospects for employment," The San Jose Mercury News reported.
