https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/college-admissions-demographic-cliff-16dec51f

https://www.facebook.com/reel/2131972234424741

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2026/08/30/after-the-closures/

NeuroticBear said:

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Eatamus Rectumus posting more far-left slop, I see.

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He always pastes slop, so I didn't bother to read. But the OP theme is something many are predicting. What issue do you have with it?

It's an interesting time to be alive. Government loans that built and propped up colleges has been reduced. Harder to get $ for families. Also, inflation and wage lag are eating away at savings. AI will take jobs, zero question. People will opt out for blue collar work.
Don't know where it's going because colleges are experiencing large enrollments at the moment. But in the next decade, it seems like there could be a reckoning. Many of the "lesser" schools may contract. In Texas, A&M and UT now own all public universities for the most part. Just wondering if they'll close a few or reduce a few. Hard to say because population seems to always be growing,but demand could easily drop.

SILVER LINING ALERT: Think of all the 'affordable' housing that will become available when college's go under.

All the time

Dude is fkn crazy

Hundreds of colleges are sending students letters of admission—without even requiring an application.

Known as “direct admissions,” this expedited process is free and omits required essays, questions about extracurriculars and mandated standardized tests. 🔗:… pic.twitter.com/L9slj3ucJU

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 9, 2026

boognish_bear said:

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Hundreds of colleges are sending students letters of admission—without even requiring an application.

Known as “direct admissions,” this expedited process is free and omits required essays, questions about extracurriculars and mandated standardized tests. 🔗:… pic.twitter.com/L9slj3ucJU

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 9, 2026

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LOL. I got accepted by OU without applying in 1988. This is not a new thing.

GoodOleBaylorLine said:

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boognish_bear said:

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Hundreds of colleges are sending students letters of admission—without even requiring an application.

Known as “direct admissions,” this expedited process is free and omits required essays, questions about extracurriculars and mandated standardized tests. 🔗:… pic.twitter.com/L9slj3ucJU

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 9, 2026

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LOL. I got accepted by OU without applying in 1988. This is not a new thing.

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That happened to me with Texas A&M

I was top 10% from an East Texas high school.

They sent me a automatic acceptance letter and tons of letters constantly during my senior year.....I never even applied there.

All self-inflicted. After the 60s, the Academy slowly transformed from a place to find the best and brightest to a place where the stupidest find lifelong careers being worthless on the government's dime. The Academy has been on the leading edge of Didn't Earn It incompetence so it is not surprising the morons who now occupy much of it are driving off a cliff.

The heyday of college education is coming to an end, especially as entry level jobs get swallowed up by ai.

And I think it's for the best, at this point we only need our big state schools and the handful of private schools who can offer a premium education, like Baylor.

We also need to cut the useless degrees. If you're not going to college for Law, Business, Medicine, or Engineering then don't even bother. I can't believe families will pay the Baylor price tag just to have their kid major in Sports Management. Total waste of money.

This has been discussed in several threads over the years. I think there was even one with the same title about a year or two ago.

It is not anything new. It is something that can be seen looking at birth rates.

And yet colleges/universities are expanding, building new satellite campuses, adding programs/degrees, or even entire schools.

Tarleton State is about to start a massive expansion project of their Fort Worth Campus to turn it into a full college with thousands of students. Same with UT Arlington, West Campus (in Fort Worth).

And those are just the two I know of doing construction on new campuses off the top of my head. I am sure I could find more if I looked it up.

TAMU just opened a new building in downtown FTW for the law school and engineering. They broke ground on a second building right next to it the morning they officially opened this one.

Redbrickbear said:

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And yet how many of those schools INCREASED staff in non instructional roles? Probably 95%. Especially in DEI type roles, administrators, etc.

Mothra said:

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Good. College has become a leftist cesspool and racket, with costs outpacing inflation by around 700%.

A few less colleges may do the world good.

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Yep, the best thing for America is to get kids looking at college skeptically - make colleges compete for people, and make technical/blue collar jobs more attractive. Less liberals will only make our country better.

Demographic changes will probably finish off a lot of colleges

But academia actually died in the USA decades ago….

How American academia was captured in the 1960s: combination of brute violence and cowardice on the part of administration/professors. I might add dependence on USG for funding. https://t.co/ChPoWk8RTL

— arctotherium (@arctotherium42) September 12, 2026

CU Boulder projected record enrollment this fall. Instead, the unexpected decline could leave it with nearly $25 million less tuition revenue than budgeted. https://t.co/TiFpR1VjL9

— 9NEWS Denver (@9NEWS) September 13, 2026

It's possible that we will do just fine without so many colleges or college professors…

In his book A Culture of Growth, Joel Mokyr describes how universities in early modern Europe were not the main centres of innovation. They were largely conservative organisations where scholars typically sought textual purity, not scientific truth.

What made the Scientific… pic.twitter.com/SpYnHjSQzo

— Lionel Page (@page_eco) September 14, 2026

Here's my absolute favorite genre of public relations spin.

When a university HAS to release it's 10th day enrollment numbers.

But, those numbers are catastrophically bad.

So they issue a 1,000 word press release that is full of nothing but fluff.

They released the first… pic.twitter.com/lHrWLeax5R

— Ryan Burge 📊 (@ryanburge) September 16, 2026

Yale has nearly one bureaucrat for every undergraduate student — 6,401 management and professional staff and 6,667 undergraduates.

Since 1995, Yale’s bureaucracy has increased 147% while the student population has increased only 43% (and the undergrad population only 25%). pic.twitter.com/kqBl968Rha

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) September 15, 2026

There's actually a website tracking which colleges are in good shape and which ones are in danger (for private schools):

https://www.universitydeathpool.com/home/

it's actually kind of interesting. The really small schools have a sharp danger curve just because a 10% drop in students could really hurt. Two major keys to survival are the state of the endowment and how the school has managed money. For instance, UMHB avoids debt like the plague, so it's in very good shape (also helps to be in a growing area). Some of the other small schools in Texas are on the danger side.

I rarely say this, but this is some pretty good work by NPR:

“Five-hundred colleges and universities in the U.S. now share one alarming distinction: At least 40% of recent students who borrowed federal loans aren't paying them back.”

“Were it not for federal student loans and… pic.twitter.com/jfwB4tQPNj

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) September 16, 2026

El Oso said:

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TAMU just opened a new building in downtown FTW for the law school and engineering. They broke ground on a second building right next to it the morning they officially opened this one.

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It's not a coincidence that TAMU is viewed as a "conservative" university.

As noted above, most universities have become bloated cesspools of radical, left-wing activism being funded by working people with dozens of Didn't Earn It administrators and Didn't Earn It students majoring grievance studies.

Compared to UT and most others, A&M is conservative. Especially if you look at the students instead of faculty and administrators.

historian said:

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Compared to UT and most others, A&M is conservative. Especially if you look at the students instead of faculty and administrators.

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That would be true of Baylor as well. If you are looking at the students themselves and not the faculty/administrators and their progressive policies/priorities

Many SEC and southern ACC schools follow this same trend. Conservative students, liberal-progressive faculty and admins

It's probably true of many universities, including possibly Baylor.

The Yale Report on Trust in Higher Ed:

“It was remarkably difficult for our committee to answer a basic question: What share of Yale's resources is devoted to its core academic functions and what share is not?”

“We recommend that Yale undertake a transparent review of its… https://t.co/4gNx9i2uGP pic.twitter.com/k4bp411npo

— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) September 17, 2026

"the 'college wage premium'—the extent to which those with bachelor’s degrees out-earn high-school grads—has suddenly dropped off, just in the past few years, after rising for decades and plateauing in the mid-2010s." https://t.co/mZMYpmbcVO pic.twitter.com/VljhqzMo3G

— Rob Henderson (@robkhenderson) September 22, 2026

Many professors in the humanities keep calling it a packaging problem. Wrong. The real reasons enrollment is collapsing: obsession with identity, speech policing as virtue, and the conversion of entire disciplines into political projects. https://t.co/NOyT0Ls8CR

— Timur Kuran (@timurkuran) September 24, 2026

Redbrickbear said:

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Many professors in the humanities keep calling it a packaging problem. Wrong. The real reasons enrollment is collapsing: obsession with identity, speech policing as virtue, and the conversion of entire disciplines into political projects. https://t.co/NOyT0Ls8CR

— Timur Kuran (@timurkuran) September 24, 2026

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I am a liberal arts major, but the Humanities really are pointless even without the radical woke propaganda.

I think at one time when we generally hired great professors a case could be made, but I bet 90% of Humanities faculty are legitimately morons.

Syracuse missed its undergraduate-enrollment target, creating a $30-million deficit. Now its new chancellor wants a mostly faculty committee to propose “disruptive and potentially unpopular” reforms — and answer what a $95,000-a-year education is worth. https://t.co/B5Jiw7fPmb

— The Chronicle of Higher Education (@chronicle) September 25, 2026