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By Jessica Grose

Opinion Writer

Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been keeping track of every report I see about major budget shortfalls at universities. The general trend seems to be that the schools facing these shortfalls have declining enrollments, and state and federal funding is not meeting the financial gaps left by fewer students. Every week it seems there’s fresh bad news. Here’s a sampling:

“SUNY Warns of Future $1B Deficit Without Higher Tuition or More Aid” — The Times Union, Jan. 2.

“As Covid-19 relief funding runs out, UConn is expecting a $70 million deficit in fiscal year 2025, which begins in July” — The Connecticut Mirror, Jan. 23.

“Penn State Plans Nearly $100M in Cuts for FY26 Budget” — Higher Ed Dive, Jan. 24.

“As U. of Arizona Confronts Budget Cuts, Workers and Students Brace for the Worst” — The New York Times, Feb. 21.

And those are all public universities. There are several private colleges, less-selective schools in particular, that are in dire shape — including schools in the New York metro area that are selling off some of their real estate in order to make ends meet, according to reporting from The Times’s Sharon Otterman. Josh Moody at Inside Higher Ed clocked 14 four-year nonprofit institutions that closed their doors in 2023, and those schools “largely fit the same profile: mostly small, private, tuition-dependent institutions with meager endowments that have seen enrollment slipping for years and have been unable to recover from those sustained losses.”

A few long-term trends have combined to create this growing crisis. One is the declining birthrate since the Great Recession, which is causing an “enrollment cliff” based on the numbers of potential students turning 18 over the next decade. The other is the decline in Americans’........

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