CLEVELAND — Notre Dame College will close its doors permanently at the end of the semester after more than 100 years of operation.

Leaving students, like freshman Alejandro Castro, scrambling to find a new place to finish school. On Wednesday, the college located in South Euclid hosted a school fair to help students find their next place of higher learning.

“A lot of us athletes are very stressed out about it,” Catro said. “I play football here, class of ’27, just got here, only played a semester of football here, but you know it is alright, everything happens for a reason, onto new beginnings.”

NDC has partnered with other colleges and universities for a “teach out” program which allows students in good standing with at least 60 credits guaranteed admission at one of the partner schools. 

Dan Karp, with Baldwin Wallace University, attended the fair and explained that their goal is to make the students’ transition as seamless as possible. 

“Notre Dame College students who transfer to BW will have a special orientation just for them because they are experienced college students already, so we are not going to put them with the first-year students,” Karp said. “We are going to put them in a special group. They are going to get special access tours and information about BW that will carry through their first year and make sure they get all of the resources they need.”

Dozens of higher education institutions were at Wednesday’s fair, including Hiram college. 

Rob Bohrer, the president of Hiram, said that during his time in higher education, he has never seen a situation quite like this one.

“Nothing ever like this and it’s happening more frequently I think now than in the past,” Bohrer said. “This is something that I have never seen anything like this before.”