The school’s sudden closure took many, including the state, by surprise.

Company representatives informed the Missouri Department of Higher Education they were going out of business on Friday — just days before students showed up for class and found the facility shuttered. The company told the state that its reason for closing was financial.

By Wednesday, Missouri Tech’s website was down and school officials could not be reached for comment. The company’s Facebook page hasn’t been updated since June.

Department of Higher Education officials drove to the school this week to collect student transcripts, but cautioned on Wednesday that it’s possible not all records were salvaged.

Department spokeswoman Jessica Duren said the state was working to match students with similar programs as quickly as possible. It’s unclear when that might happen, and if so, how closely the new programs students are admitted into might resemble Missouri Tech’s.

Before shutting down, the company offered programs in networking, software engineering and electronic engineering.

Missouri Tech is not the first for-profit school in Missouri to shut down in recent years, but it is the first to do so without warning and without offering what’s known as a teach-out — a chance for current students to complete their training.

By closing down immediately, the company left students with one of two options: either keep the credits earned while at Missouri Tech and still be responsible for paying back federal loans, or walk away from both the credits and the loan at zero cost to the student.

St. Louis attorney Norm Pressman said Missouri Tech students didn’t have much if any legal recourse for the disruption. When a company goes bankrupt, there’s usually no one left to sue, he said.

“The real question is whether the students can get some type of settlement on their student loans, or are they going to be pursued to the ends of the earth to pay those off?” Pressman added.

Earlier this year, the U.S Department of Education forgave an estimated $3.6 billion in loan debt to students of the now-defunct Corinthian Colleges, one of the largest for-profit schools in the country before it ran afoul of the federal government. Corinthian reached a deal last year to sell or close 97 colleges across the country, including its Everest College sites in Earth City, Kansas City and Springfield, Mo.

The company found itself in trouble after charging students excessive fees, lying about job prospects for its graduates and, in some cases, encouraging students to lie about their finances to get bigger financial aid packages.

Former Missouri Tech students are encouraged to visit www.dhe.mo.gov/psc for information about their transcripts, student loans, which schools are accepting students and general financial information.