{"id":99411,"date":"2026-10-27T15:41:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T19:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/?p=99411"},"modified":"2026-10-27T16:14:32","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T20:14:32","slug":"experts-say-higher-education-is-an-industry-in-turmoil-the-collateral-damage-is-widespread-marcus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/2026\/10\/27\/experts-say-higher-education-is-an-industry-in-turmoil-the-collateral-damage-is-widespread-marcus\/","title":{"rendered":"Experts say higher education is an industry in turmoil. The collateral damage is widespread [Marcus]"},"content":{"rendered":"

Experts say higher education is an industry in turmoil. The collateral damage is widespread<\/strong><\/a> — from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus
\nColleges are closing at a pace equivalent to about one every three weeks, with more projected<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

AMHERST, Mass. \u2014 The parking lots are mostly vacant. Locked and dark, many of the buildings are lifeless but for dying plants in dusty pots. One of the few people visible is a white-bearded man on a riding mower, tending to an empty lawn as if by habit.<\/p>\n

This is not a factory or office park abandoned by its tenants. It\u2019s Hampshire College, a once-celebrated liberal arts school that will shut down in December. That makes it the latest in a steady stream of colleges that are closing or merging, at a rate that last year reached the equivalent of nearly one every three weeks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone is shocked to hear that more than a quarter of our private colleges could be gone in the next decade,\u201d said Peter Stokes, a managing director at Huron Consulting Group, which has projected that 442 of the nation\u2019s 1,700 still-operating private, nonprofit universities and colleges are at risk of having to close or merge in the next 10 years. \u201cWe\u2019re now talking about hundreds of other institutions being in a similar situation.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Also see:<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The State of Higher Ed 2026, in 4 Charts<\/strong><\/a> — from linked.com by Jeff Selingo<\/p>\n

For nearly 60 years, higher ed had one answer to almost every strategic question: get bigger. <\/strong>Add programs, schools, enrollment, research labs, campuses, athletic teams, international students, online degrees.<\/p>\n

That era is ending.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the central argument running through this year\u2019s State of Higher Education,<\/strong> my annual briefing for presidents, trustees, cabinets, and faculty leaders. Like last year\u2019s inaugural deck, it borrows from Mary Meeker\u2019s \u201cInternet Trends\u201d: heavy on charts, quick to scan, built for leadership teams to work through together.<\/p>\n

The 2026 edition covers six areas: the business model, federal policy, research, AI, athletics, and governance. <\/strong>The question across all of them is what\u2019s temporary and what\u2019s structural. Each section ends with a page of opportunities for leaders.<\/p>\n

Here are four charts <\/strong>from the briefing and what they tell us about what\u2019s next\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Experts say higher education is an industry in turmoil. The collateral damage is widespread — from hechingerreport.org by Jon Marcus Colleges are closing at a pace equivalent to about one every three weeks, with more projected AMHERST, Mass. \u2014 The parking lots are mostly vacant. Locked and dark, many of the buildings are lifeless but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[113,61,209,115,302,71,35,178,3,285,239,201,217,480,66,321,214,445],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21st-century","category-business-side-of-he","category-changing-business-models","category-colleges","category-community-colleges","category-faculty-staff","category-game-changing-environment","category-generational-differences","category-higher-education","category-legislation-legislatures","category-new-business-models","category-policy","category-research","category-society","category-student-related","category-united-states","category-universities","category-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99411"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99425,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99411\/revisions\/99425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danielschristian.com\/learning-ecosystems\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}