A News Perspective: School's out forever at private broadcasting school

It happens at least once a semester. On your way to your class, you are stopped by a piece of paper on the door that says class is cancelled. Although you may be frustrated if you drove to NEIU just for that one class or you stayed up late doing the assignment that was due for that class, you probably feel some satisfaction in a class cancellation.

Now imagine finding a similar piece of paper at the school's entrance, but instead of notifying you that your class has been cancelled, the form is notifying you that your school has gone out of business and will be permanently closed.

At the Chicago campus of the Connecticut School of Broadcasting (CSB), this is exactly what happened, according to a news broadcast on CBS. On March 5, students who made their way to classes at CSB's campus at 203 N. LaSalle St. were greeted by locked doors and a notice on a window that said the school was closed until further notice.

According to the press release from CSB, the private broadcasting school has ceased operations on its 26 campuses after its lender, National City/PNC Bank froze the school's accounts. The school is now seeking bankruptcy protection.

According to Associated Press, students of CSB pay as much as $12,000 for the school's 16 week courses. Now that the school has closed, students are concerned about whether or not their money will be refunded. They are also upset that they will lose the job placement opportunities and studio access that they were promised as students of the school.

On the Facebook group, "Bring Back CSB," student Shannon Bouchter expresses this concern. "All of us thought that we would always be able to have access to any of the studios across the U.S. That's what we paid for."

Although the students of CSB will undoubtedly work hard to correct the financial issues such as reimbursement, there is nothing they can do to make up for the time wasted in classes that were never finished and the opportunities they will miss in career placement following graduation.

Considering the cost of the CSB courses and the small size of the school (according to CSB's Web site the student to faculty ratio is 5:1), it is not entirely surprising that the school has become a victim of the slumping economy.

However small the amount of students, though, these are still people who are now left with financial problems and no school to call their own.

At a state university like NEIU, we'll hopefully never have to experience a closure like CSB's. However, this doesn't mean we have nothing to worry about. As this issue's front page reports, our budget has been cut. Student workers' hours get slashed. Scholarships get downsized. We're all feeling this recession in one way or another.

So next time you're on your way to class and praying for it to be cancelled because you didn't do your homework or you have something better you'd rather be doing, and you get to class and find that is in session as usual, be glad. At least you have a class to go to, where you can see your tuition money at work.