Visual Documentation of the College Meltdown Needed

 

                                       

The Higher Education Inquirer is looking for images to document the College Meltdown which began in 2010.  

The US Department of Higher Education posts hundreds of campus closings each year.  Images of these closed schools can be used to document an important part of US higher education history.

Closed campuses vary in size, from high school classrooms, hotel conference rooms, and store fronts, to satellite and branch campuses, to small private colleges, and larger career colleges. Some schools have been repurposed, others demolished, and others remain in disrepair--as ruins--and relics of a more humane (or at least more human) past. 

                        

Over the last two decades, the University of Phoenix alone closed more than 500 campuses, many which were conveniently located near US interstate highways.  In 2025, UoPX will have just one campus, located in Phoenix, Arizona. 

In 2015, Corinthian Colleges and Le Cordon Bleu went out of business.  A year later ITT Tech closed all of its doors. The Art Institutes also closed dozens of campuses. In 2018, Virginia College campuses closed, and Kaplan Higher Education sold its remaining properties to Purdue University. Today, only a few Purdue University Global campuses remain.  DeVry University has closed many locations, but several ghost campuses, those with few if any students, remain. Ashford University became a fully online University of Arizona Global. 

In just a few decades, under the guise of creative disruption, brick and mortar colleges with skilled professors and staff have been replaced by large online robocolleges that hire few if any instructors and offer fewer student services, such as mental health counseling.  And community branch campuses have been replaced by online program managers (OPMs) that advertise, recruit, and even write curriculum for regional public universities and elite private colleges, often without the knowledge of the students/consumers.  

The US Department of Education's PEPS Closed School Monthly Report has been largely ignored by the media.  But as a historical document, the list is telling.  Since 1986, approximately 18,000 campus closings have been reported. The peak year for closings was 2016, when more than 1100 schools were reported as closed.  

 

 [Bay State College in Boston, Massachusetts, which has partially closed. BSC is owned by Ambow Education., which is in deep financial trouble]

How University of Phoenix Failed. It's a Long Story. But It's Important for the Future of Higher Education. 

Abandoned Long Island College Sits in Disrepair, And Community Says It's A Danger (Greg Cergol, NBC New York)

The Growth of "RoboColleges" and "Robostudents" 

 PEPS Closed School Monthly Report