A national beauty school in business for more than five decades has closed its doors, leaving students in a lurch.

The closing of the Regency Beauty Institute, with 79 campuses nationwide, is impacting students, staff and customers in the Bay area as well. 

Student Dori Farrell thought she'd be walking out of the Institute's campus in Carrollwood as a graduate today.

"Today was my graduation day," said Farrell. " I had bought a cute little outfit for my daughter. I was going to spiff her all up and bring in and my dad was looking forward to it, all the people that stood by me through this."

Instead, Farrell, along with other Regency students nationwide, received emails sent overnight indicating that a school-wide shutdown was in effect.

"It's just really disheartening that this happene dto all of us because we're all here to make a future and they kind of just took it out of our grasp," said student Krystle Torres.

Thousands of cosmetology students are being impacted, including about 30 at the Tampa location on north Dale Mabry Highway. Also, the school has several customers that utilize its students for low cost beauty treatments.

"Each girl has put their everything into this school, even after multiple staff changes, throwing us in a loop and back and more," said student Ashley Minton. "I gave $15,000 to this company, and now I don't really have much to show for it." 

Another student, Crystal Farrell, said there was no indication of any problems as recent as Wednesday.

"I attended school [Wednesday], and the campus manager and teachers said nothing," Crystal Farrell said. "They accepted four new students on Monday. How is this OK?"

In a statement on its website, Regency Beauty Institute officials say obtaining financing was getting more challenging, citing a nationwide decline in cosmetology student enrollment and what they called a negative characterization of for-profit schools being pushed by politicians and regulators.  

Administrators at Regency's Bay area campus released a statement overnight saying: 

"This is not another case of a school being forced to shut down because it was accused of wrongdoing. We held ourselves to high educational and ethical standards. The environment is simply not one that allows us to remain open." 

Regency's Tampa campus will be open Thursday between 3 and 5 p.m. and Friday between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. for students to come by.

Also, school officials said it has set up arrangements for students to transfer to other schools and that transcripts will be mailed out by early October.