A crisis is looming for U.S. colleges - and not just because of the pandemic

By ITS Education Asia

Chalkface has been following the growing crisis among universities globally with financial strain being caused as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Low student enrollments have meant many universities around the world are in crisis.  This article from NBC News is a recent report on the situation in the US.

This article about college financial health was produced in partnership with The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. This is part 1 of the Colleges in Crisis series.

Dozens of colleges and universities nationwide started 2020 already under financial stress. They’d spent the past decade grappling with declining enrollments and weakening support from state governments.

Now, with the added pressures of the coronavirus pandemic, the prospect of lower revenues has already forced some schools to slash budgets and could lead to waves of closings, experts and researchers say.

Analysis of the stress test results found:

• Nationwide, more than 500 colleges and universities show warning signs in two or more metrics.
• The problems were not evenly spread among states.
• Roughly 1,360 colleges and universities have seen declines in first-year fall enrollment since 2009, including about 800 four-year institutions.
• Nearly 30 percent of all four-year schools brought in less tuition revenue per student in 2017-18 than in 2009-10.
• About 700 public campuses received less in state and local appropriations in 2017-18 than in 2009-10, and about 190 private four-year institutions saw the size of their endowments fall relative to their costs.

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