How Colleges Can Save Themselves

 

As the collegiate calendar winds down soon for the summer, it's worth asking, how many will reopen in the fall?

Forty-eight have closed in the last five years, and it's all but certain that many more, particularly small liberal arts ones, are on a collision course with extinction.

Consider the demographics. The number of high school graduates peaked last year and will decline annually for as far as the eye can see. Insiders call it the "enrollment cliff."

Additionally, fewer high schoolers will choose to go at all. The ROI on $250,000 simply isn't there, particular as AI savages early-career white collar jobs.

Worse, universities have seen a decline in donations while simultaneously tapping endowments at a higher rate. Both Moody's and Standard & Poors have issued negative fiscal outlooks.

In short, universities have a failing business model, one bloated with fatuous majors and legions of useless administrators. Elon Musk fired 80% of the Twitter staff and the platform is more robust than ever. Imagine what could be done with the academy.

None of this is news. The question is, what can colleges do about it? What role can they play to justify a small fortune and four years of a person's life?

Let's start with the obvious, which is what they need to stop doing: charging the GDP of small countries to attend. To do this, they need to radically reduce overhead. Yale has almost the same number of administrators as it does undergraduates. That's insane.

Then they can excise every department that ends in the word "studies." You know, the grievance factory.

But charging less still leaves the question, charging for what? 

If they are to be saved from themselves, there are strengths colleges can play to, and it's no longer conveying information. It's social development.

Today's teens are increasingly isolated, locked into their screens, gaming or scrolling. They date less, party less. Teen girls, in particular, are seeing huge spikes in mental health issues. Loneliness is endemic.

I learned plenty in college. I've also forgotten most of it. What I kept are lifelong friends, and there are few things I value more. The process of making them involved sports, clubs, parties, and conversations over lingering meals in the dining hall. 

Social things.

Colleges must lean into this on multiple fronts. Start with the pedagogy. The traditional model of professors giving lectures is toast. Information is now free and unlimited. You don't have to go to Harvard to get it. 

Learning must be more interactive and collaborative, with viewpoints actively challenged. Class participation is a must. This will increase retention and teach students how to think for themselves, not just relying on AI for all the answers. 

Outside the classroom, colleges should heavily promote clubs, debating societies, religious organizations, and yes, Greek life. (That last one will be hard after decades of administrative hostility.) Anything that promotes personal connection and interaction.

Sports are equally important, and not just at the varsity level. Club and intramural sports play a role. The pickle ball club at UVA has seven hundred members. How many friendships are being forged on those courts?

Those friendships are a support network in college and long after.

Importantly, it must not be college administrators who "engineer" the social environment, because their ideas will be DEI-tinged nonsense. They need to just get out of the way.

The trend towards off-campus housing solutions also needs to be reversed. Campus is the social hub, and students should be there as much as possible, learning to deal with difficult roommates.

School spirit, treated by some liberal arts schools as vaguely embarrassing, should be embraced. I can accurately assess the cultural health of a university by how well-attended their sporting events are. Top administrators should be seen in the stands.

These experiences can produce socially functional, free thinking, emotionally healthy adults, something AI can never do. Colleges need to understand their abiding strength and run with it. 

The alternative is irrelevance and bankruptcy.