The Economics of Higher Education Are Only Getting Worse
For too long, universities have cranked up tuition and students have gritted their teeth and paid up. That era is over.
It’s not just students getting hurt from soaring tuition.
Photographer: Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
Higher education in the U.S. has been heading for a shakeout for a long time, and now it has come. Universities are facing a big, long-lasting funding crunch as demand for undergraduate education looks unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels anytime soon. That means schools need to find new ways to pay their bills or risk going under.
At the beginning of the pandemic, there were many predictions of economic doom that happily failed to materialize, thanks in large part to ambitious government relief efforts. Unfortunately, the devastation of the higher education sector seems to be one prophecy that is coming true.