Step within the stone gates of a liberal arts college and it is easy to see the appeal: small classes and sprawling lawns, neo-Gothic architecture and modern amenities. When such institutions were established, many hoped they would foster an intellectual “awakening” among students. A string of recent closures suggests this mission has gone astray — and it is college administrators who need the wake-up call.
The recent decision to close Hampshire College in Massachusetts is one such warning. Despite multiyear efforts to fundraise and refinance debts, the school struggled to overcome a precipitous decline in enrollment, which had halved since the early 2000s. Hampshire is hardly alone. According to one estimate, more than a quarter of the nation’s 1,700 private nonprofit four-year colleges and universities, serving some 670,000 students, are at risk of closing or merging within the next decade.
Simply put, graduates want jobs. Despite recent improvements, unemployment among young adults with a bachelor’s degree remains high and uncertainty prevails about the effect of artificial intelligence on entry-level work. Yet far from seeking college as a pathway to employment, teens now question whether a degree is worth the trouble. Enrollment among recent high school graduates has fallen 8 percentage points since 2016.
For liberal arts colleges this crisis of confidence could not have come at a worse time. Starting last year the population of 18-year-olds began to shrink, thanks to declining birth rates after the global financial crisis. Immigration restrictions sought by the White House, meanwhile, have sharply limited the pool of international applicants, who often pay full price.
Demographics aside the challenge facing colleges is largely self-inflicted. Sliding academic standards and lenient grading — meant to placate students — have cheapened degrees at all but the most elite schools. That students increasingly doubt the value of a product they once demanded should put faculty and administrators on notice.
Small liberal arts colleges tend to fall into two economic traps. One is cost disease: A highly skilled labor force (professors) demands wage increases, yet colleges remain stubbornly resistant to changes — such as expanded enrollment — that might increase productivity. Most schools, meanwhile, have small endowments and limited public funding, making them reliant on tuition. Recruitment, however, often requires heavy discounting. As a result, almost 90 percent of students do not pay full price, and net tuition has been falling.
All of this is to say that the closures are likely to continue. Policymakers should work with administrators to ensure they occur in an orderly manner. Students at colleges that shutter abruptly are less likely to complete their degrees than their counterparts at schools with a transition plan in place — by a margin of 10 percentage points. Any such program should help students transfer to public institutions, honor credits earned and provide financial aid counseling. State officials likewise should improve data collection and financial monitoring to better anticipate when closures would occur.
Schools should use this reckoning to rethink how to prepare their students for a future shaped by AI and other new technologies. The White House is rightly focused on expanding apprenticeship programs and vocational schools. Liberal arts colleges would need to demonstrate that the skills they were founded to impart — critical thinking, civic literacy, empathy and curiosity — are compatible with the jobs of tomorrow. Some public schools are already moving in this direction.
The closure of small colleges should be an opportunity for those that remain. A liberal arts education, properly priced and designed, might just be one worth saving.
The Editorial Board publishes the views of the editors across a range of national and global affairs.
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