Will 25 Percent Of Colleges Consolidate? An Update On A Prediction

As detailed on this site, in 2013, Clayton Christensen and I made a bold prediction in the New York Times: “a host of struggling colleges and universities—the bottom 25 percent… will disappear or merge in the next 10 to 15 years.” Christensen would sometimes make bigger claims in speeches and suggest that a half of colleges and universities could close, merge, or go bankrupt, even as the 25 percent number remained the baseline of our prediction.

Many in the higher education establishment and media scoffed at the prediction. In 2018, I amended the prediction to suggest that we were directionally correct, but the prediction would probably play out over 20 years, not 15. And it likely should not only include college consolidation, but also significant restructurings.

So roughly a decade in and still before the demographic decline hits colleges—particularly those in the Northeast and Midwest—how is the prediction holding up?

Pretty well it turns out.

It’s become commonplace to note that one college is closing every week this year, according to the Hechinger Report’s Jon Marcus (important to note: the rate of closures did slow over the summer).

But starting with the 2013-14 academic year, a whopping 726 degree-granting institutions closed through the 2022-23 school year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That means in just nine years, 15 percent of the-then 4,724 degree-granting colleges or universities closed.