The University of the Arts taught students for almost 150 years. In June, it closed suddenly. Is this the future for hundreds of universities?

Many colleges are facing a bleak future: declining enrollment, increasing costs, and empty coffers. The idea of a college closing its doors used to be unthinkable. Today, about 2 a month are going under.

The University of the Arts may be the canary in the coal mine.

Declining Enrollment

Every fall, fewer Americans are heading off to college. The numbers peaked in 2010 at 21 million students and have fallen to 18.6 million.

Americans are having fewer children. And given the high costs, many young people are questioning whether college is worth it.

No matter how good your school is, you’re swimming against that tide.

Excessive Costs

The University of the Arts wasn’t cheap.

Tuition was $54,290 a year. Add in living expenses, and you’re looking at around $80,000. A four year degree would run you over $300,000.

It’s hard to justify tuition like that at a school no one has ever heard of.

Take University of Wisconsin-Madison, my alma mater. Tuition is under $12,000 and name recognition is far better. If you can’t get in, there are countless other state schools that charge a lot less than $55k.

How did the costs at some colleges get so high? One reason is an explosion of administrators.

From Forbes:

Between 1976 and 2018, full-time administrators and other professionals employed by those institutions increased by 164% and 452%, respectively. Meanwhile, the number of full-time faculty employed at colleges and universities in the U.S. increased by only 92%, marginally outpacing student enrollment which grew by 78%.

I have no idea what all these assistant vice provosts of diversity do. But at an average of $150,000 a pop, they certainly cost students plenty.

The Price of Education Goes to Zero

Small, private schools like University of the Arts are having a hard enough time competing. But what happens when the cost of education drops to zero?

While I was writing this article, I used ChatGPT Search to find lots of information. Effectively, I got a tutor on the subject for $20/month.

And it worked — I learned a lot!

Today, you can have ChatGPT or Perplexity tutor you on any subject. It knows pretty much everything and it never runs out of patience. And unlike a big university lecture, AI can tailor its lesson to you.

Only a handful of top schools like Harvard can teach you better than AI. Now, all that’s missing is a credential to show what you’ve learned.

Startups will pop up to fund that gap in the market. Already, Coursera can give you a unique ID to prove you took a class.

Wrap-Up

Call me a jerk, but I love seeing places like University of the Arts go out of business.

For decades, they charged people ridiculous prices for a degree from a place no one’s ever heard of. How many people are struggling with debt from this marginal institution?

For top colleges like Harvard or even UW-Madison, the future is secure. They have name recognition and multibillion dollar endowments.

But no-name schools charging you $60k? That’s over.

The cost of education is going to zero. And we’ll be better educated than ever.

How do you think people will learn in the future?

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