By Doug Lederman, Inside Higher Ed
The number of colleges and universities eligible to award federal financial aid dropped by 5.6 percent in 2016-17. The vast majority of disappearing institutions were for-profit colleges, but more than 30 private nonprofits were among them. New federal data suggest the increasing financial pressures may be starting to take a toll on institutions. An annual report from the Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics shows that the number of colleges and universities eligible to award federal financial aid to their students fell by 5.6 percent from 2015-16 to 2016-17. That’s the fourth straight decline since a peak of 7,416 institutions in 2012-13. It is also by far the largest (the others were 0.3, 1.2 and 2.0 percent, in order).
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