I recently published an article, "The Future of U.S. Higher Education: A Few Stars, Many Satellites," that argued
a few star universities will flourish while the rest starve and die. Patterns in college applications imply this trend is already under way. Imagine a reduction from some 5,300 U.S. colleges and universities to 50, each with its renowned outlook (including some conservative ones), specialties and strengths. Thousands of existing campuses will become shared satellite facilities for those 50, complete with dormitories and sports facilities.
The following weblog entry offers others' views supporting this prediction.
David Kirp of UC-Berkeley argues that the most prestigious American universities should clone themselves - a step toward the model I proposed above:
A top private university like Princeton or Yale (or perhaps a renowned college like Amherst or Swarthmore) should open a new campus.
The institution would not have to lower its standards, because the best and brightest would queue for admission. Professors with glittering résumés would jump at the opportunity to teach there — indeed, for the adventurous Yale-caliber academic, the opportunity to be present at the creation could be a powerful draw. Cities would perform handstands to land such a school.
Harvard-San Diego, Yale-Houston — this idea is not simply off the table in academe. It is not even within the realm of these universities' imagination. But why should it boggle the mind? If Yale can open a campus in Singapore, why can't it start one in Houston?
(April 6, 2021)
May 7, 2021 update: I omitted a fifth existential challenge to American universities: "A Historic Decline in U.S. Births Signals More Enrollment Troubles." An excerpt: "with a smaller pool of college-age students ... competition for them will only stiffen. Wealthy, selective colleges won't see a drop in demand, ... leaving questions about how smaller, regional institutions will fare." Oct. 26, 2021 update: Further confirmation, from U.S. News & World Report: "College Enrollment On Track for Largest Two-Year Drop on Record. Higher education enrollment rates dropped for the second straight year, defying predictions of a post-lockdown bounceback and hitting a record low for a two-year span." Jan. 13, 2022 update: Total college enrollment in the fall of 2021 dropped 2.7 percent from a year earlier, a decline of 476,100 students.
June 3, 2021 update: On the emergence of another "mega-university," the University of Arizona, see "A New Mega-University Expects to Earn Big Money Immediately. Are Its Projections Too Ambitious?" Aug. 1, 2022 update: Today's news suggests those projections were too ambitious: "Two Years After Promising a 'Transformational' Partnership, the U. of Arizona and Zovio Part Ways."
June 16, 2021 update: From the Chronicle of Higher Education: "Since 2016, colleges have failed for many reasons: changing demographics, fewer students with a religious background (impacting the many small colleges with a religious affiliation), a drop in interest in single-sex institutions, and changing student preferences for urban over rural environments."
Sep. 1, 2023 update: The same process is underway in another advanced country: "Australia's Great Divide: Rich Universities Grow as Others Falter."
Apr. 10, 2024 update: An article on the closure of Goddard College mentions in passing other institutions of higher education that have shut their doors in 2024:
Goddard is now the fourth college to announce a closure in less than a month, following Oak Point University in Illinois, Birmingham Southern College in Alabama and Fontbonne University in Missouri, all of which cited enrollment and financial issues.
Notre Dame College in Ohio announced its looming closure in late February. And in January, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts said it would end its degree offerings.
Other institutions have publicly acknowledged they are teetering on the brink of closure, including Northland College in Wisconsin—which has attempted to fundraise its way out of financial distress with limited success—and Eastern Gateway Community College, which has paused registration and is expected to close unless it receives an influx of funding by the end of May. Saint Augustine's University, a historically Black university in North Carolina, is also facing existential challenges as it contends with financial issues and the loss of accreditation. And Union Institute & University in Ohio is stuck in limbo, under state and federal scrutiny for its failure to pay employees and alleged misuse of federal student aid dollars. Union Institute has not offered classes in recent months but has made no announcement about a potential closure.
June 3, 2024 update: Here's a possible sixth existential challenge, as described in an article titled "The Lure of Work: In Iowa, enrollments are falling as businesses recruit high-school grads. Can colleges come up with a better pitch?"
July 30, 2024 update: Mills College, a small institution for women founded in California in 1852, was about to fold in 2021 when Northeastern University, a large research university in Boston took it over. Avoiding the cumbersome formal name, Mills College at Northeastern University, most call it the Oakland campus. In covering this merger two years later, the Chronicle of Higher Education ponders how, "As contraction in the higher-education sector continues, more colleges will be forced to reckon with what the loss of their identity might mean."
Aug. 12, 2024 update: I imagined just 50 universities; Audrey Williams June
published an article today in the Chronicle of Higher Education imagining "What Would Higher Ed Look Like Distilled Into 100 Institutions?" (The answer is less interesting than the question.)
Aug. 21, 2024 update: In 1966, 2.49 million Japanese turned 18 years old in 1966, about 1.1 million did so in 2023, and a mere 820,000 are projected to do so in 2040. This two-thirds decline has ominous implications for Japanese universities; the Japan Association of National Universities has issued a draft interim report that, in a newspaper paraphrase, "has sparked discussions on the need for consolidation, downsizing, or potential closures."
Aug. 22, 2024 update: A report from the National Center for Education Statistics finds that the number of Title IV higher education institutions (those eligible to participate in federal financial aid programs) shrank by 99 institutions, or 1.7 percent, from 5,819 in the 2023–24 academic year compared to 5,918 in the 2022–23 academic year. Data from the U.S. Department of Education clarifies that 161 institutions lost Title IV status while 62 institutions opened, bringing the net decline to 99. A further breakdown finds that 73 institutions closed, 17 merged, and 71 otherwise lost their Title IV eligibility.
Clare McCann, director of higher education at Arnold Ventures, a philanthropic group, commented that "We're likely to continue to see closures in the coming years, especially as financially struggling colleges cope with falling enrollment and the expiration of pandemic-connected relief funds."
Aug. 28, 2024 update: Daniel Greenstein explains how, as chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education since 2018, he merged 6 of the system's 14 four-year public universities into 2, Pennsylvania Western University and Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania, in an attempt to save them from fiscal ruin.
Oct. 9, 2024 update: "See how we are expanding access to students across the U.S." urges Arizona State University in a long and glossy brochure announcing its intention to survive the coming onslaught as "The New American University." (It even includes a picture of a dinosaur.)
Feb. 28, 2025 update: A working paper by Robert Kelchan, Dubravka Ritter, and Doug Webber examining factors associated with college closures finds that
Enrollment growth in recent years has been concentrated at a small number of flagship public and wealthy private universities, while regionally focused institutions — engines of social mobility — have generally struggled. Tuition prices have increased more slowly than the rate of inflation for much of the last decade, and rising tuition-discount rates have reduced revenue for many colleges. On the other side of the ledger, operating costs have risen quickly since the pandemic and typically outpace gains in revenue.
Apr. 15, 2025 update: Richard K. Vedder, Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus at Ohio University, has published Let Colleges Fail: The Power of Creative Destruction in Higher Education (Independent Institute). From the publisher:
Why do we subsidize universities through taxpayer-provided grants and private donor gifts when the institutions are so obviously failing America's youth? How can we justify this special status, while businesses offering far more useful goods and services are punished by confiscatory taxes—for simply turning a well-deserved profit? ...
Vedder reminds Americans of the concept of "creative destruction" (famously introduced by economist Joseph Schumpeter)—the idea that, because markets threaten to reallocate resources from unproductive to productive uses by "creatively destroying" failing businesses, markets actually help failing businesses adapt to the market's ever-changing needs and realities. It's sink or swim. ...
if universities want to survive, says Vedder, they must learn to swim, too. But because we have cushioned them from the demands, necessities, and realities of public life, American colleges are weak, woke, and unforgivably obtuse. Their eye-stretching price tag just adds insult to injury.
Apr. 29, 2025 update: In an interview with Susan H. Greenberg, "A Little Failure Goes a Long Way," Vedder explains his basic ideas. One excerpt:
I want colleges to realize that they need to step up their act and maybe change a little bit more than they have, be more aggressive in reformulating themselves—partly on the cost side, to become less expensive, but also to become focused on job one: teaching and research. It's the act of disseminating and discovering knowledge, and that's what we're about. We do a lot of other things that are distractions—like March Madness. It's great entertainment, but it's a ball-throwing contest. If you go to Oxford or Cambridge, you don't see basketball being played at a professional level, sponsored by the university.
Apr. 30, 2025 update: Limestone University, founded in 1845, has announced it will shut down at the end of the semester. My reaction is: however historic these institutions, the psychological impact will only come when closures take place at colleges and universities one has heard of.
Oct. 22, 2025 update: The webpage, "Our Global Campuses" of Northeastern University reveals twelve locations other than the historic Boston one: Arlington VA, Burlington MA, Charlotte, London, Miami, Nahant MA, Oakland, Portland ME, Seattle, Silicon Valley, Toronto, Vancouver. (A thirteenth, in Manhattan, is in the works.) Northeastern, with a $2 billion endowment, is not even one of the heavyweights.
Dec. 3, 2025 update: The Chronicle of Higher Education published today an article titled "College Bankruptcies Are Coming."
Dec. 18, 2025 update: Inside Higher Ed reports that 14 colleges closed in 2023, 16 in 2024, and 15 in 2025.
Jan. 22, 2026 update: A lengthy discussion of Bryan Alexander's Peak Higher Ed: How to Survive the Looming Academic Crisis (Johns Hopkins University Press) suggests he broadly concurs with my predictions.
Apr. 8, 2026 update: From a Wall Street Journal article by Douglas Belkin titled "The Small Private Colleges Dying in a Winner-Take-All University Marketplace
Big-name campuses turn away students while hundreds of lesser-known schools struggle to fill seats":
Consolidation of the nation's nearly trillion-dollar higher-education sector is driving a new winner-take-all market, benefiting Ivy League campuses, flagship public universities and schools with high-profile sports teams and renowned research institutions. They enjoy high demand and a surplus of full-tuition payers, while lesser-known campuses juggle cost cuts and steep tuition discounts ... to fill seats.
Shrinking enrollment at 442 private nonprofit colleges—out of 1,700 nationwide—is placing them at significant risk of closing or merging in the next decade, according to a forecast by the Huron Consulting Group, which advises schools on operations and mergers. Small and rural colleges, including many that survived the Great Depression, are especially vulnerable.
