University Presidents: Growing Fear That Their Schools Will Go Under - Richard Vedder, Forbes

Typically, today’s college presidents are at least privately pretty pessimistic about the future of higher education. When asked whether they agreed that “I am confident my institution will be financially stable after 10 years,” only 53%, a bare majority, agreed or strongly agreed with the statement. If you believe the presidents, Schumpeterian “creative destruction” is increasingly coming to the academy as it has for centuries affected the competitive for-profit market economy. The presidents were asked whether they agreed that each of six different types of institutions would be sustainable over the next decade. For three of these categories, more presidents disagreed that they were sustainable than agreed that they were so: for-profit schools, non-elite four year private schools, and non-flagship state universities. For example, only 11% agreed or strongly agreed that non-elite private four-year schools were sustainable, while 47% felt (in some cases strongly) that they were unsustainable. By contrast, they felt far more bullish about elite private schools and public flagship universities, and lukewarmly positive about the future of community colleges. https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardvedder/2018/04/02/university-presidents-publicly-optimistic-privately-scared/#15c81c043576