Higher Education in Crisis, 80 Colleges Could Close By 2029 Even As Elite Ivy League Schools Thrive 📚

- Fast Company, Dec. 11, 2024. Ed. - Many colleges are struggling financially as enrollment falls. Blame skyrocketing tuition and growing doubts about the value of a degree. 🎓
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American higher education is in crisis.

This year, some 2 dozen colleges shut their doors and more are forecast to close in 2025, CNBC reports.

According to new research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, as many as 80 colleges and universities are expected to close in the next 5 years. That working paper from the Fed based its analysis on a massive dataset of college and university information from 2002 to 2023, which predicted future closures through a model using machine learning. It found that of the 100 riskiest institutions it assessed, 84 closed within a 3-year period.

Researchers then predicted the likelihood of future closures, factoring in a 15% decline in enrollment between 2025 and 2029.

Many colleges are struggling financially as enrollment falls, the result of skyrocketing tuition costs and students questioning if the degree is even worth the hefty price tag.

Bucking the trend are more elite institutions, such as the so-called Ivy-Plus schools (i.e. “Ivy equivalents,” Stanford, MIT, Duke, University of Chicago, and others), as well as the Ivy Leagues themselves, all of which are experiencing record-breaking increases in applications. (As of November 1, overall applications rose 10% for the 2024-25 application season, compared to a year earlier, according to the latest data from the Common Application.)

WE CAN’T BLAME IT ALL ON COVID
A report from Best Colleges found that 40 colleges have closed since 2020, the year the pandemic began. (It also found another 32 public or private nonprofit schools merged or announced mergers with other universities.) The report said that the COVID-19 pandemic forced campuses to temporarily shut down to help contain the virus, and then some were unable to reopen due to financial strains.

However, the findings showed that many of the biggest issues now facing higher education (dwindling enrollment, rising tuition, doubts about the value of a degree) started long before the pandemic, and American colleges have been closing for the past decade. It’s possible that the pandemic simply accelerated the issue...Read More,
https://www.fastcompany.com/91245055/higher-education-crisis-more-colleges-closing-by-2029-ivy-league-thrives
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- What Are the 'Ivy Plus' Schools, More,

Originally a football conference, the Ivy League has become broadly equated with the nation’s oldest, most selective, and most academically respected schools. Ranging from urban Columbia and UPenn to the more rural Dartmouth and Cornell, the “Ivy” moniker ties these schools together more by association and history than by any one collective attribute.

As a handful of other schools have approached similar levels of reputation, resources, and rigor, the term “Ivy Plus” (or “Ivy+”) is now used to highlight their top-level caliber in attracting world-class faculty, research dollars, and intellectually curious students. The Ivy Plus schools typically include highly selective schools such as Stanford, MIT, Duke, and Caltech...
https://toptieradmissions.com/what-are-the-ivy-plus-schools/