U.S. Universities Are Running Out of Customers
The combination of a stronger labor market and a fewer young people poses an existential challenge to higher education’s business model.
What’s to celebrate?
Photographer: Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images North AmericaThe University of Austin, a new academic institution created by a group of donors and intellectuals unhappy about the increasingly left-wing tilt of Anglophone academia, was unveiled last week.1 Many faculty at existing universities, including several who are not especially left-wing, were unimpressed.
This is hardly surprising, and not just for political reasons. Incumbents do not generally welcome new entrants to a market. And the core challenge facing U.S. colleges and universities is economic: An increasingly robust labor market is now competing with them for a dwindling number of young people.