CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Toni Valentine, a third-year law student, wanted to know if her school, Charlotte School of Law, was going to close, but it was not telling her.

So, she took an overnight bus last month from here to the Education Department in Washington. “I was exhausted and dressed in sweats, and dragging my suitcase,” Ms. Valentine, 30, said. “But that didn’t stop me.”

After hearing her out, officials at the agency later that day sent her and other students an email explaining that closed-door negotiations to restore the law school’s access to federal loans had broken down.

The for-profit school, with hundreds of students, remains in business, even without the lifeline of federal student aid. It is counting on the Education Department under the Trump administration to reopen the loan spigot that the agency turned off last month after the American Bar Association, the law school accreditor, found that the school did not satisfy its admissions and curriculum standards.