This podcast examines the financial health and long-term viability of public and private colleges, drawing on data, institutional financials, and perspectives rarely centered in mainstream higher education coverage.
This week’s discussion highlights a wave of layoffs, program cuts, and institutional retrenchment across the sector. Stories include colleges eliminating dozens of “low-producing” academic programs, campuses experiencing sustained enrollment decline, and institutions emerging from—or newly entering—financial and accreditation probation after deep budget cuts.
Several cases illustrate how financial stress reshapes academic life: colleges cutting entire majors such as economics and physics, institutions laying off staff as part of resource “shifts,” and campuses operating without core infrastructure—such as libraries—for years. The episode also addresses abrupt closures, including bankruptcies that disrupt students and anger alumni, reinforcing warnings that delayed action often increases harm.
At a policy level, the podcast notes signs of structural adjustment in higher education, including Colorado Governor Jared Polis’s proposal to merge the state’s higher education and labor departments—an acknowledgment of the growing alignment between workforce policy and postsecondary education.
Overall, the episode argues that college bankruptcies are coming, not as isolated failures but as predictable outcomes of demographic decline, financial mismanagement, and delayed decision-making. It closes by pointing listeners to The College Viability Manifesto, which calls for earlier, more transparent intervention to reduce damage to students, workers, and communities.
