A struggle to survive.

The Washington Post reports.

Enrollment challenges at several colleges in Virginia and Maryland

Sweet Briar College, a small women’s school in rural Virginia, got much smaller in 2015 amid the tumult of a shutdown plan announced abruptly in March and then canceled three months later. Its fall head count was 320 students, down more than half from the previous year’s total of 700.

But new data from Virginia and Maryland show Sweet Briar was not the only college in the region with significant enrollment challenges.

There were declines of 5 percent at two private schools with a historic focus on educating women: Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Va., and Notre Dame of Maryland University in Baltimore, according to figures from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia and the Maryland Higher Education Commission.

There were declines of 7 percent at private McDaniel College in Westminster, Md., and 8 percent at private Ferrum College in Southwestern Virginia. At Virginia State and Norfolk State, two historically black universities, there were declines of 7 percent and 15 percent, respectively.