Academic closures, mergers, and cuts: August-September 2024 edition

Posted on October 4, 2024 by Bryan Alexander

How are American colleges and universities responding to institutional pressures?

Today I’ll share exemplary stories from the past two months. I’ve been blogging this theme for months now (March 1, March 20, March 28, April, May, June, July), partly as evidence for some points in the book I’m writing. This post will follow the same structure as the others, starting with campus closures, followed by mergers, staff cuts, and looming financial problems. At the end are some brief observations.

1 Closing colleges and universities

Let’s start with a big picture observation. The total number of American higher education institutions shrank by 2%, “from 5,918 in 2022–23 to 5,819 in 2023–24,” according to federal data. In terms of absolute numbers, “[t]he number of Title IV institutions in the U.S. and other jurisdictions decreased from 5,918 in 2022–23 to 5,819 in 2023–24.”

Now, down to cases. The University of the Arts (Philadelphia: private), which announced it would close this summer after failing to find a merger partner, filed for bankruptcy. The Higher Ed Dive article notes several legal actions by former staff seeking to get paid.

2 Mergers

Lackawanna College (Pennsylvania: private) and Peirce College (Philadelphia: private) announced they would merge their institutions by…