Weekly Briefing

Too Many Colleges?

Does Pennsylvania have too many colleges? For years, many institutions in the Keystone State have expressed concern about their future.

This isn’t unique to Pennsylvania. Many states are experiencing several factors — like declining enrollment, decreasing state investment, and a waning number of high-school graduates — that contribute to this concern among colleges. But one thing sets Pennsylvania apart: The state has a big number of higher-ed institutions compared with its population of recent high-school graduates.

A Chronicle analysis of Pennsylvania found that the state had 149 four-year public, four-year private, and two-year institutions for undergraduates in 2020. That’s about 7,570 18- to 24-year-old Pennsylvanians for every college.

But the more students there are per college, the less crowded a state generally is with institutions. And two of the states that border Pennsylvania —Ohio and New York — have more 18- to 24-year-olds per college. In 2020, Ohio had 8,882 in that age group for each of its 120 colleges, and New York had 7,655 for each of its 228 colleges.

To restore balance, Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education, also known as Passhe, recently consolidated six of its campuses into two after more than a decade of financial pressures and declining enrollments.

Want to see how many Pennsylvania counties are home to at least one college? Take a look at a data visualization from our Audrey Williams June and Brian O’Leary.

A Thanksgiving note.

There will be no Weekly Briefing next Saturday, November 26, after the Thanksgiving holiday. I’ll be back on Saturday, December 3. To prepare for the holiday, and any questions that you may get from family or friends about higher education, I’ve compiled some links to help. Happy reading (and explaining):

• Presidents created the mess in college sports. Can they fix it?
• How critical race theory became Enemy No. 1 in the battle against higher ed.
• How affirmative action and race-conscious college admissions dominated higher-ed debates for years.
• Who can afford to live on a Ph.D. stipend?
• Do the ‘U.S. News’ rankings rely on dubious data?
• Why does college cost so much?
• Americans increasingly see the public value of higher education. Can college seize the moment?
  

Lagniappe.

• Learn. What is the best airport in the country? Where does your airport rank on this list? My local airport, DCA, is not looking too good. (The Wall Street Journal)
• Read. An Oscar-winning Iranian director assigned students to make documentaries. Years later, the director created A Hero, a 2021 film that was eerily similar to one student’s documentary. Did he steal her ideas? (The New Yorker)

• Listen. In 36 minutes, get up to speed on the rise and fall of the man who was supposed to save the crypto industry. One remarkable detail about this story and others about failed tech giants is how founders get politicians and other business executives to trust them. (The New York Times, CrunchBase News, Fortune)

  —Fernanda