WASHINGTON -- The Massachusetts congressional delegation on Friday asked the Department of Education and the Department of Veteran Affairs to help the 1,400 Bay State students abandoned by the sudden closure of American Career Institute, a for-profit technical school that had campuses in Framingham, Cambridge, Woburn, Springfield and Braintree, as well as in Maryland.

The institution closed its doors earlier in January without warning students, blaming the owners’ abrupt decision on their inability to secure additional credit from the school’s lenders.