Why are so many colleges closing?

More than 500 nonprofit private colleges have shut down in the last decade, said The Wall Street Journal, "three times what it was in the decade prior." The rising cost of tuition plays a role in the rising rate of closures, with prospective students now "re-evaluating the overall value of a four-year degree." And there are fewer of those students: Declining birthrates have created an "enrollment cliff" that has left much of higher education "buckling under the strain of tuition losses."

The trend started in 2017, said CNN, but slowed during the COVID pandemic as colleges were boosted by a flood of federal aid. That money has now run out. The result? Some analysts worry that "fewer colleges will mean fewer college graduates." That could hinder workforce development for younger and mid-career workers. And maybe something more. "What is going to be lost is the commitment that we had to making sure that higher education was accessible to everyone," said Hodges University President Charlene Wendel. (Hodges, in Florida, closes its doors on August 25.)

What did the commentators say?

The Biden administration has an "aggressive approach to college oversight," Zachary Schermele said at USA Today. Colleges aren't supposed to close "with little or no warning" — consumer protection laws require institutions to warn regulators that they're "financially unstable." But thousands of students have been caught unaware and left in a lurch, often with debt and half-completed degrees. There needs to be a "new urgency" in tracking the "warning signs" in higher ed. Colleges will close, one professor noted, "so the challenge becomes: When do people know that their college is at risk?"

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If the baby bust is hurting enrollment, the "longevity boom" could boost colleges, a trio of experts said at Inside Higher Ed. The conventional "learn, work, retire" could be upended and rethought in an aging country. And retirees are increasingly moving into "encore careers" that require new skills and education. That's why colleges could move to "age-inclusive models" that promote "intergenerational" learning with both younger and older students. "Demand will only grow."

What next?

Colleges "large and small" are cutting costs by phasing out majors and "slashing" programs, said The Associated Press. Those kinds of cuts "appear to be more commonplace" than schools closing outright, but they also affect students — particularly those in humanities programs, which are facing the deepest cuts. Will that help those institutions survive? "It's an open question to what extent colleges and universities can cut their way to sustainability," said Georgetown University senior scholar Bryan Alexander.

Most abandoned students "give up on their educations altogether," said The Hechinger Report, an education newsletter. Fewer than half transfer to new schools — and fewer than half of those students complete degrees. Why? Credits don't always transfer. That means more expense and time for do-over classes. "It's just another roadblock," said Luka Fernandes, whose first school closed after his junior year, "especially with people who are struggling with tuition in the first place."