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Dive Brief:
- The spring term spelled the end for at least three liberal arts colleges, which will soon either cease operating or accepting new students.
- The colleges — Becker, Mills and Concordia New York — all said the coronavirus pandemic exacerbated existing financial woes.
- Higher education experts predict more consolidation among all types of colleges and an uptick in closures.
Dive Insight:
In the pandemic’s early days, a slew of pundits predicted the financial strain of moving instruction online and losing key auxiliary revenue would trigger a wave of college closures. Robert Zemsky, an education professor at the University of Pennsylvania, predicted as many as 200 schools could buckle under the pressure in a year.
That hasn’t come to pass, with fewer than a dozen nonprofit college closures announced since the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic, according to Higher Ed Dive’s count. Still, experts say struggling schools must contend with a shrinking pool of traditional-age students and rising tuition discount rates.
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