Never before have more Americans attended college. Today, roughly 57% of Gen Z enroll in some form of postsecondary education after high school.
Yet at the very moment participation has peaked, confidence in higher education is eroding. The traditional four-year degree, once a hallmark of intellectual formation and social mobility, is increasingly questioned, both for its cost and its purpose.
Part of this decline stems from a shift away from classical liberal arts education, which once emphasized the pursuit of truth through disciplines such as philosophy, literature, history, and rhetoric. This model aimed not merely at job preparation, but at forming well-rounded, critical-thinking individuals.
In contrast, much of modern higher education has become narrowly utilitarian, focused on credentialing, specialization, and workforce outcomes, often at the expense of intellectual depth and coherence.
So, is the current model losing its authority? And what does this transformation mean for the future of colleges and universities?
In a recent op-ed, Pepperdine University President Jim Gash warned of the troubling trajectory of American higher education, a concern he further expanded upon in an interview with The Daily Signal.
The Education Paradox
“The challenge is figuring out what education ought to be,” Gash said, citing the identity crisis in higher education.
He added that many students don’t even fully know what they’re looking for until they encounter it.
Reflecting on visits to classical schools, Gash described what genuine education can look like: “I often have the opportunity to … watch what it looks like when students are excited about cultivating virtue in themselves as they are learning about the world.”
In those environments, students are not only preparing for careers but “becoming the kind of leader that this country wants and needs.”
Too often, he warned, colleges fall short of that ideal, offering “either a technical education or something that is not calling them to a high level of learning but instead trying to appease them in their desire to have fun.”
For the first time in decades, college is no longer seen as the default path to a good life. Increasingly, it resembles an extension of high school, something to do before entering the workforce.
Education Used to Mean Something—Does It Still?
It wasn’t always this way.
From early institutions like Harvard and Yale to the expansion of public universities under the Morrill Land-Grant Acts in 1862, higher education had a clear mission: forming thoughtful, virtuous, and informed citizens. A degree carried weight because the formation behind it carried weight.
Over the past 30 years, that mission has eroded. College has shifted from intellectual formation to lifestyle experience.
At the same time, academic rigor has declined. According to the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, just 18% of public universities require even one course in history or government.
The result is a system that increasingly resembles a four-year lifestyle experience with a credential attached.
Hollowing Out Universities
The academic shift hasn’t helped restore confidence.
Gash noted in his op-ed, “If the American experiment is to flourish in the coming generations, our diagnosis must be honest: Education has too often been hollowed out to make room for technical skill.”
Many institutions have moved away from core curricula in favor of more fragmented or ideologically driven coursework. In doing so, they’ve weakened their identity as places dedicated to truth-seeking and intellectual development.
As a result, Americans see universities as more focused on culture than on competence.
When institutions drift from their purpose, professors pushing more activism than education, people notice and eventually walk away. Falling enrollment, financial strain, and campus closures are the result.
The Decline of ‘Traditional Learning’
As colleges move away from traditional education, students are moving away from traditional colleges.
Liberal arts enrollment is shrinking, while trade programs and alternative credentials are growing. Many students now prioritize convenience and efficiency over depth.
Technology has accelerated that shift. With artificial intelligence tools widely available—up to 90% of college students use them, according to Forbes—students can outsource much of the reading, writing, and research once central to their education.
The traditional model—four years of broad intellectual formation—has lost both its appeal and its credibility.
If college is no longer clearly about truth, virtue, or serious study, the question becomes unavoidable: Is it worth the $30,000 to $200,000 cost?
For many Americans, the answer is increasingly no.
According to data from Inside Higher Ed and the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, 14 colleges closed in 2023, 28 in 2024, and 16 in 2025, with more closures already announced this year.
This isn’t a temporary downturn. It’s a slow-moving collapse.
A Chance to Rebuild
Yet this moment of decline is also an opportunity.
If colleges want to survive, they must recover what once made them valuable. Expanding access to education was a success, but in the process, the purpose of education itself was blurred.
In his op-ed, Gash writes, “Most of all, we as institutions of higher education must boldly and unashamedly reclaim our greater purpose, our most fundamental reason for existing: the cultivation of virtue in our students. We must teach them integrity, humility and courage—traits that they will learn more thoroughly from our actions than merely from our words.”
That insight points to a path forward. If colleges refocus on serious learning, they can restore their value.
The question now isn’t just whether colleges can stay open. It’s whether they can once again become places where education, not just experience, actually matters.
Katherine Matt is an intern for The Daily Signal.
Reproduced with permission. Original here: The Crisis in Higher Education and the Collapse of Colleges in US
