When colleges close, students are left scrambling. Some never go back to school

PHILADELPHIA — Katherine Anderson trekked from Texas to Philadelphia last year for a college program she couldn’t find anywhere else, combining the music business, entrepreneurship and technology. “We all believe that no academic journey should include this kind of severe and abrupt disruption.” Drummer Adam Machado, 18, came to the University of the Arts from New York’s Hudson Valley so he could study a range of styles, including jazz and contemporary, in a major city. But he also wonders if he’ll find the same curriculum, sense of community and ability to pursue gigs in both New York and Philadelphia, where he performed Wednesday night with a band called “Kids That Fly.” He grieves for “not only me, but 1,000 other artists are without a home.” Like many classmates who went through the draining college search process just a year ago, he’s not sure what he’ll do next. “It’s very numbing,” said Nasib, a theater major who had just signed a lease for an apartment near the college campus, since his parents are moving from the Philadelphia suburbs to the West Coast. Nationally, as many as half of students whose campuses close don’t resume their studies, according to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, whose data surveys both nonprofit and for-profit schools, including two-year colleges.