That is the topic of my latest Free Press column. Here is one excerpt:
So schools will respond to cost pressures by letting quality deteriorate. More instruction will be of the inferior online variety. There are very good online experiences, but schools are too bureaucratic and not run well enough to deliver them. Fewer professors will be full-salaried, tenure-track professors. Administrators and staff will grow at much slower rates than over the last 20 years, a positive development.
That overall picture may sound grim, but adjustments will kick in to limit the costs. A global market will ensure that adjunct faculty are smarter and better than before. Students will get better at using AI to teach themselves, filling in the gaps left by university budget shortages.
At the same time, colleges and universities will get better at marketing and fundraising. Schools with famous football and basketball teams will be just fine. Schools will intensively market a few academic superstars and let the quality of their median tenured faculty decline. Every possible profit center in a university will be mined for extra revenue, whether extra housekeeping service for dormitory living or renting out the swimming pool and university library to nearby retirees.
And this:
Perhaps you commonly hear it said that “college is what you make of it.” That may sound like a cliché, but it is a truth that helps us understand this new world to come. A lot of students just flat out want to go to college. If they have to put more into the social side of learning to make it worthwhile, they will do so.
In sum, there will be a lot of painful adjustment, but the major institutions will not come close to disappearing.