More than a quarter of private colleges are at risk of closing

https://www.npr.org/2026/04/13/nx-s1-5777582/many-private-colleges-at-risk-of-closing More than a quarter of private colleges are at risk of closing, a new projection shows April 13, 20265:00 AM ET By Jon Marcus …A new estimate projects that 442 of the nation's 1,700 private, nonprofit four-year colleges and universities, with a combined 670,000 students, are at risk of closing or having to merge within the next 10 years….More than 120 institutions are at the very highest risk, according to the forecast by Huron Consulting Group, which helps clients in industries including higher education formulate business strategies. For its assessment, the company analyzed enrollment trends, tuition revenue, assets, debt, cash on hand and other measures. Many are, like Sterling, small and rural. "Now that this might be gone, I just really worry about some students out there that are going to have less and less choices," Keeley said. It's a crisis whose magnitude has been overshadowed by political and culture-war attacks on higher education and is propelled by the simple law of supply and demand after a long decline in the number of Americans who are going to college. "We have too many seats. We have too many classrooms," Peter Stokes, a managing director at Huron, said of U.S. colleges and universities. "So over the coming five to 10 years, this shakeout is going to take place."… There are about 3,700 two- and four-year public and private degree-granting colleges and universities in the United States. That's already down from a peak of 4,726 in 2012. Almost all that have closed since then were private, for-profit schools, which enjoyed a brief boom before crashing under the weight of consumer discontent and increased regulation. …Many converging reasons explain why private, nonprofit colleges and universities, too, are now under existential strain. There are already 2.3 million fewer students than there were in 2010. A drop in the birthrate that began around the same time means there is about to be a further downward slide in the number of 18-year-olds through at least 2041. Among the other factors:  The proportion of high school graduates who go on to college is also down, from 70% in 2016 to 61% in 2023, the most recent year for which the figure is available.  The number of visas issued for new full-tuition-paying international students coming to the United States plummeted by nearly 100,000 this year, or 36%.  And looming caps on federal loans for graduate study, which take effect in July, threaten to reduce demand for yet another crucial revenue source. While higher education institutions previously weathered short-lived declines in enrollment and increases in costs, today "every major revenue stream and expense category is under pressure at the same time," the higher education consulting firm EAB warns in a new analysis. Eighty-six percent of college and university leaders are worried about their schools' long-term financial viability, according to a survey in December by the American Council on Education, the principal industry association. A fifth of college and university presidents say they've had serious discussions about merging with another university or college, a separate survey by Hanover Research and the industry news site Inside Higher Ed found. Signs of strain are spreading And nearly a third of private, nonprofit colleges and universities nationwide posted deficits in 2024, according to research by Robert Kelchen, director of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. And it's not just small schools that are affected. Even public universities and colleges are facing deepening financial problems, reports the Fitch bond-rating agency, citing slowing economic growth and federal policy changes. The University of Southern California has sent pink slips to more than 900 employees. Stanford University, Northwestern University, and Depaul University have also seen layoffs. And, as part of what its president called a "broader strategy to strengthen GW's long-term financial health," George Washington University announced in March that it had sold a satellite science and technology campus in Virginia for what the student newspaper reported was $427 million. Community colleges, too — which enroll nearly 5.6 million students — are suffering financial squeezes that leave them less able to adapt or respond to change, according to Daniel Greenstein, former chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, who now tracks financial exposure in the industry. In the case of community colleges, wrote Greenstein, "The risk is not a sudden collapse of the sector. The risk is a slow erosion of capacity in precisely the institutions on which communities rely most." Still, after two and a half decades in which the price of tuition has increased faster than inflation, for a payoff many consumers no longer think is worth the money, higher education often gets little sympathy for its predicament — and even less after years of political and culture war attacks on the ideological leanings of faculty and leadership. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/04/college-enrollment-demographic-cliff/686750/ The Looming College-Enrollment Death Spiral After many decades of democratization, higher education could once again become a luxury good. By Jeffrey Selingo April 12, 2026, 7 AM ET The “demographic cliff” is upon us. The number of teenagers graduating from American high schools peaked last year. It will begin declining this spring and keep falling steadily through at least 2041. The trend is more of a downward slope than an abrupt falloff, but the gradient is steep and represents a crisis to colleges dependent on filling classroom seats and dorm beds. The United States currently has about 4,000 colleges. According to a recent study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, about 60 are closing on average each year; that number could double in any given year if the bottom falls out of enrollment. If the harm were only to the institutions forced to close because they’re running out of customers, that would be unfortunate but not tragic. But the causality runs in the other direction too, as students who otherwise would have gone to college find themselves with no viable option in the place where they live. American higher education has long consisted of two markets: one where high-achieving, typically affluent students compete for seats at national universities, and one where mostly middle- and lower-income students stay closer to home. Members of the first group will be fine even as college closures accelerate. The second group will suffer. After many decades of democratization, higher education could once again become a luxury good. Over the past half century, as more teenagers have enrolled in higher education, what was once mostly a local business has become national, especially for top students, whose sense of distance has gradually shifted. Campuses that once felt far away now seem closer, thanks first to interstate highways, then to discount airlines, and then to technology. Parents in the 1980s might have talked to their college kid on a dorm-floor pay phone once every few weeks, if they were lucky. Today’s parents can text and FaceTime their kids multiple times a day…. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/10/ivy-league-schools-prestige/684454/ The ‘Best’ Colleges Aren’t the Best Forever Prestige isn’t permanent. By Jeffrey Selingo October 4, 2025 For decades, higher education seemed immune to market forces, as families stretched to pay almost any price for a top-ranked college. Prestige was seen as synonymous with enduring value: Harvard would always be Harvard, Yale would always be Yale, followed by the Northwesterns and the Cornells, with aspirants such as the University of Southern California and Northeastern further down the ladder. But with sticker prices surging and graduates facing a tough job market, many parents have begun to question whether prestige alone is worth the price. As reputation loses some of its grip on the marketplace, colleges are moving up and down the list more than ever. How we think about brands in higher education was largely decided centuries ago when America’s top colleges were established. These perceptions were cemented in the late 1980s, when U.S. News & World Report turned its college rankings into an annual exercise. A school’s “reputation score,” as determined by a survey of college leaders, was the most heavily weighted factor in assigning it a ranking on the list. Reputation is still the biggest factor in the U.S. News methodology, and plenty of people still care enough about an exclusive brand to pay a premium for it. In recent years, however, many families have begun to put more emphasis on practical matters such as tuition costs, hands-on learning, and career outcomes. This evolution in priorities stems partly from personal experience. Today’s parents—who are more likely than their parents to be college graduates—have seen the college hierarchy change in their lifetime. When U.S. News released its 1989 rankings, it not only issued overall rankings, but also listed the top 25 colleges by reputation alone. A few of the names among the latter list seem like typos today: the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Purdue University, Indiana University Bloomington. Meanwhile, schools that were considered regional brands three decades ago, such as the University of Southern California and New York University, have risen in the rankings and now have acceptance rates that rival those of the Ivy League. Last cycle, NYU broke its own record, with more than 120,000 applications for a class of some 5,700 students….