S/O College enrollment cliff/schools closing

[essnce629]

This article came out today and I thought of Wendibird's mention about the college enrollment cliff that's expected in 2025. Do to this cliff and the fact that many small private colleges are not financially healthy, many will be forced to close or merge in the near future. The article includes a chart with every private college's financial health grade. I found it useful and eye opening, especially since my DS1 is only interested in small liberal arts colleges so far.

Dawn Of The Dead: For Hundreds Of The Nation’s Private Colleges, It’s Merge Or Perish
https://www.forbes.com/sites/schifri.../#2e070795770d

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[StantonHyde]

Thanks for posting this. Very fascinating. Some of these are no surprise. Just because a college exists doesn't mean it's a good college. And the elite colleges will do well. It is sort of sad to see a school like Drexel not doing well financially---there were great things about that school 25 years ago. But I think it's ok for some colleges to close in order to match enrollment. I am bookmarking this article and want to check the colleges my kids apply to against this list.

[Kestrel]

This was interesting. I didn't realize how much would change before DS (high school class of 2027) is deciding on/if college. He's young enough that we're not looking into schools yet, but it sounds like thing could be very different by then!

[Kindra178]

Going back to this, can someone explain the cliff to me?


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[o_mom]

Going back to this, can someone explain the cliff to me?


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Basically, there is a dip in the birthrate, which is projected to hit colleges in the mid to late 2020's. Higher ed is predicting fairly significant drops in enrollment, which will affect small programs disproportionately. Google "college enrollment cliff" and you can get a ton of articles like this one: https://www.cupahr.org/issue/feature...ollment-cliff/ which have various predictions of what the ulitmate impact will be.

[essnce629]

Concordia University in Portland announced today out of the blue that it is closing at the end of the semester. 5000+ students and 200+ faculty left hanging!

https://www.oregonlive.com/education...-semester.html

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[KpbS]

Concordia University in Portland announced today out of the blue that it is closing at the end of the semester. 5000+ students and 200+ faculty left hanging!

https://www.oregonlive.com/education...-semester.html

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Wild! I’ve been seeing ads for them in my fb feed for the last month with no real clue as to why.

[nfceagles]

That must be beyond frustrating for current students.

Won’t this drive down the cost of college in the long run? That would be a good thing, assuming you don’t end up at one of these closing universities.


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[wendibird22]

That must be beyond frustrating for current students.

Won’t this drive down the cost of college in the long run? That would be a good thing, assuming you don’t end up at one of these closing universities.


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I think it will be interesting to see what happens to cost. Right now private colleges have a discount rate (actual tuition instead of the sticker price) at the highest levels in history. So sticker price is going up but actual fee charged is being discounted so much that the colleges aren't sustainable. Some argue that this will cause colleges to "right size" and be the appropriate enrollment level after many years of continued growth. I don't know if right sizing enrollment will do anything to impact cost. Keep in mind that few students enrolled doesn't just mean less tuition, but less room and board, less student fees, and less meal plan money. All of that will have significant impacts on the operations of campuses beyond just salaries/staffing.

[California]

Concordia in Portland may be closing due to issues with their online advanced degree program (mainly for teachers.) Whistleblowers at the company they contracted to help run the program alleged that they violated federal regulations. The program was a huge source of revenue for the university.