Around New England

Where Did the Money Go? Sudden Closing of Swampscott College Leaves Many Questions

November 13, 2018

The closing of Marian Court College in Swampscott in June 2015 came six weeks after a gala attended by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker and his wife Lauren raised $200,000 for scholarships — money whose whereabouts is now unknown.

So is the $2,000 deposit a bride-to-be’s father paid to secure the college’s main building for a wedding reception that later had to be moved when the college closed, according to the Gloucester Times, which published an investigative story Monday.

The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office has declined to investigate Marian Court College, saying the office has received only four complaints about it as opposed to hundreds of complaints about Mount Ida College, a Brookline school that closed abruptly in May 2018, according to the Gloucester Times.

Lauren Baker, the governor’s wife, was deeply involved in Marian Court College as a volunteer trustee and fund raiser. Neither she nor the governor returned calls from the newspaper.

The Gloucester Times story refers to minutes from a board of trustees meeting describing “$87,000 in misappropriated funds,” though what that entry refers to isn’t clear.

State officials say they have concluded that the college didn’t have any assets at the end of its existence. An attempt to secure an emergency $600,000 loan in June 2015 failed, and forced trustees to close the school abruptly, according to the Gloucester Times.

Marian Court College was founded in 1964 by the Sisters of Mercy as a two-year secretarial school for women. During the last years of its existence it was offering four-year degrees in business and criminal justice.

The Sisters of Mercy, a Roman Catholic religious order, sold the 1895 mansion that served as as the school’s focal point (where President Calvin Coolidge stayed during the summer of 1925) for $2.75 million in December 2017. A developer wants to use the property for condominiums.