Officials in at least two states are looking into the abrupt closing last week of the Connecticut School of Broadcasting, an occupational school with 26 campuses that cited the dwindling availability of private student loans as a major factor in its financial plight.

Florida’s Commission for Independent Education, which licenses private postsecondary schools, is investigating the closing, The Palm Beach Post reported today. Florida is one of 16 states where the Connecticut-based school has campuses. The Hartford Courant reported last week that the state’s commissioner of higher education and attorney general had begun investigations. The state officials are trying to help students complete their programs or get tuition refunds, and investigating whether school officials continued accepting money from students when they knew the school would be closing.

In announcing the shutdown on Wednesday, the school gave students and faculty members an hour’s notice to vacate the premises. In a news release the following day, the school blamed the closure on the seizure of its bank accounts by its major lender.

The school was not accredited, and its students were not eligible for federally backed loans. While for-profit education companies that have the resources to provide their own loans are seeing rising enrollments and profits, those whose students must finance their own education with private-loan support “will be facing more challenges,” Harris N. Miller, president of the Career College Association, told the Palm Beach newspaper. —Charles Huckabee