Tracking College Closures and Mergers

Best Colleges 

Evan Castillo and Lyss Welding
August 13, 2025
The number of nonprofit colleges and universities closing keeps ticking higher. Find historical data about college closures and a list of closed colleges and mergers.
Data Summary
checkAt least 81 public or nonprofit colleges have closed, merged, or announced closures or mergers since March 2020.
checkOver 40 have closed or announced closures.
checkWe estimate that roughly 50,110 students have been impacted by private nonprofit college closures since 2020.
checkFor-profit colleges led closure rates from 2012-2019.[1]
checkSince the COVID-19 pandemic, private nonprofit colleges and universities have increasingly closed.[1]
checkNew predictive modeling from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has identified more closures ahead in the event of a drastic enrollment cliff.[2]
Across the country, colleges are increasingly shuttering as enrollment continues to decline due to natural population trends and higher operating costs.
At the end of 2024, the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia developed a model to predict college closures, estimating that up to 80 colleges could close next year due to financial distress following a worst-case-scenario drop in enrollment.[2]

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