Pilots call it “chop” – the turbulence found in the air that can buffet even the largest jumbo jets and toss unsecured passengers around like rag dolls.

Such is the environment that Nashua’s Daniel Webster College finds itself in at present.

It was less than 10 years ago – in 2009, in fact – that ITT Educational Services announced its purchase of Daniel Webster College for more than $29 million.

ITT was one of the nation’s largest for-profit higher education operators, known primarily for running a chain of technical schools most people were familiar with through their television advertisements.

When ITT announced on Tuesday that it was shutting down under pressure from the U.S. Department of Education, its portfolio of 40,000 students and 8,000 employees included Daniel Webster College.

DWC is a bona fide Nashua institution, having gotten its start in 1965 when Warren B. Rudman, James N. Tamposi and Harry J. Sheffield chartered New England Aeronautical Institute, a private, nonprofit coed college near the Nashua airport. The school started offering aeronautics and aerospace in a cinderblock hangar at the Nashua airport, added a general education component in 1967 under the name of Daniel Webster Junior College, and the schools merged in 1978 to form Daniel Webster College.

Less than a year after ITT bought the campus and its programs, it announced it would phase out and eventually eliminate the aviation and flight operations program at DWC. That was a head-scratcher for a lot of people at the time, given DWC’s location and history as a flight school.

ITT’s demise was predictable. In fact, one of the questions put to Nashua mayoral candidates at a debate The Telegraph sponsored a year ago was what the city’s response should be in the event ITT’s difficulties put DWC’s future in peril.

They have, though the good news is that the fate of Daniel Webster College is at least somewhat predictable. It remains open for now and will likely be sold, possibly to a nonprofit institution. That was the fate of some of the campuses owned by Corinthian Colleges – another giant forprofit higher ed operation – when it closed its California campuses, affecting 16,000 students.

While faculty, staff and students at DWC may be on pins and needles, it should be reassuring that there are those who see the school and its campus as an asset.

“DWC is not closing and continues to hold its NEASC accreditation,” DWC President Michael Diffily said in an email to students and staff on Tuesday. “Without the parent company’s support, it will be difficult for DWC to operate. Several institutions also accredited by NEASC have approached ITT and have expressed interest in acquiring the College, which would be a good thing for DWC.”

That is good news. While the college still has some challenges to meet with regard to its own accreditation by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, a sale represents DWC’s best chance to emerge from the current period of turbulence and into a period of relatively friendly skies.