Students at a technology-training company operating in 14 states are scrambling for refunds after receiving an abrupt notice that classes would be discontinued.

The company, ComputerTraining.edu, shut down its 22 campuses on Christmas Eve, after the financier BB&T announced plans to freeze the company's line of credit and bank accounts, as well as seize its assets, according to a statement on the training company's Web site. Students received the news in an e-mail message on New Year's Eve from ComputerTraining.edu, which bills itself as "Microsoft's Largest IT Academy."

"Students have lost their education, employees have lost their jobs, and shareholders have been bankrupted," the company's statement said.

A BB&T spokeswoman, Cynthia Williams, said that the bank has been in talks with ComputerTraining.edu since the summer and is disappointed an agreement could not be reached. ComputerTraining.edu officials never indicated that they would be unable to run day-to-day operations if negotiations fell through, Ms. Williams said.

Phone messages to the ComputerTraining.edu headquarters, in Hunt Valley, Md., were not returned Tuesday. Local news outlets near some campuses reported those locations were closed, and ABC2 News of Baltimore reported that a company representative ran away at the sight of a news camera.

Students have been told to contact state higher-education agencies, which are trying to help students secure refunds for unfinished courses or a substitute opportunity to complete their training.

Dean Kendall, associate director of work-force development for the Maryland Higher Education Commission, said his agency was still trying to find all of the 100 to 120 students that attended the two ComputerTraining.edu facilities in Maryland.

The ComputerTraining.edu campuses are two of four Maryland private career-school facilities that have shut down in the past year with classes still under way, and the first two with more than a dozen students each, said Mr. Kendall. He said the past year was the first with any such closings in at least five years.

"We look at the four precipitous closures in the past year as being directly related to the economy," Mr. Kendall said. "If the economy does not pull out the next calendar year, we might be looking at more."

Jon Nance, a 42-year-old nurse, began a six-month class at the company's Columbus, Ohio, branch on November 30 and was stunned when he got an e-mail message just weeks later that the school had shut down. When he tried to reply and get more information, he discovered that the e-mail address no longer worked.

Now Mr. Nance worries he won't get back the $13,500 he paid in advance for classes.

"I gave someone $13,500 and got literally nothing," said Mr. Nance. "I like giving gifts to people, but not that big."