Long Island's Dowling College Pushes Back Closing Date To Next Week

OAKDALE, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- Dowling College on Long Island has pushed back its closing date to next week.

The school, located in the Suffolk County community of Oakdale, announced Thursday that it will be extending its closing date to Thursday, June 8. Initially, the school had said it planned to close on Friday.

The extension gives students more time to collect their transcripts.

The college has been struggling with plummeting enrollment and rising debt for several years. With the closure, students said Wednesday that they face an uncertain future.

"I'm not going to spend my whole day to get my transcript. I have two months to find another college. I don't know what they expect me to do," sophomore, Randi Knepper said Wednesday.

Long Island's first four-year college, founded nearly 50 years ago, was steeped in debt. Its bonds were junk-rated, the school was plagued with plunging enrollment, and a last-ditch effort to find an academic partner to stay afloat fell through.

Its popular aviation school was not enough to pull it through.

"You're not going to find another school like this so I'm very sad. Don't really want to go, but I don't have another choice," student J. George said Wednesday.

Administrators called the decision to throw in the towel painful.

"We want the student body, faculty, and alumni to know we made every effort to form a suitable academic affiliation so that we could keep the college open," the school said.

Now, 2,400 students worry it's too late to enroll elsewhere for summer and fall classes, and about precious scholarships.

Offers have been pouring in from other Long Island institutions -- Molloy, Hofstra, and Farmingdale -- to extend admissions deadlines for Dowling students.

At Suffolk Community College, County Executive Steve Bellone offered expedited help.

"This institution jumped in right away to say, 'How can we help the students at Dowling College who are now facing this very difficult challenge?'" he said.

Dowling officials suggested that what's happening is not unique. They blamed unprecedented financial challenges facing countless private institutions across the nation.