Massachusetts to monitor struggling private colleges

The Massachusetts Board of Higher Education agreed Tuesday to establish a state system to monitor the financial health of private colleges, a response to the tumultuous closing of Mount Ida College last spring and the instability of other small institutions in the state, The Boston Globe reported.Under the board-approved plan, state education officials will use public data to evaluate institutions' financial health, warn them of concerns and require them to create contingency plans and notify students if it appears they lack resources to operate for the next year and a half. Schools that don't comply could lose Title IV funding.Lobbyists for private colleges said the plan will damage colleges trying to improve their financial health, noting that some have reversed their circumstances and that Mount Ida was an isolated case of a college ignoring regulations.