The financial troubles at St. Michael’s College hit home for biology professor Declan McCabe when he noticed Buckthorn shrubs encroaching on walking trails near the house of the campus president.
Enrollment declines opened the door to maintenance staff layoffs, giving the invasive shrub the upper hand. McCabe—a roll-up-your-sleeves, get-it-done Irishman—taught his students to identify the woody plant and cut it back with handsaws and loppers. He turned the chore into lessons on the environment.
Tenured professors doubling as groundskeepers at a $70,000-a-year private college in New England is another sign of what is shaping up as the bleakest era for America’s smaller private schools.
Consolidation of the nation’s nearly trillion-dollar higher-education sector is driving a new winner-take-all market, benefiting Ivy League campuses, flagship public universities and schools with high-profile sports teams and renowned research institutions. They enjoy high demand and a surplus of full-tuition payers, while lesser-known campuses juggle cost cuts and steep tuition discounts, including at St. Michael’s, to fill seats.
Shrinking enrollment at 442 private nonprofit colleges—out of 1,700 nationwide—is placing them at significant risk of closing or merging in the next decade, according to a forecast by the Huron Consulting Group, which advises schools on operations and mergers. Small and rural colleges, including many that survived the Great Depression, are especially vulnerable.
St. Michael’s, one of the most well-respected institutions in northern New England, is among them. Enrollment is down by 45% over the past 10 years. The 120-year-old college has run recent budget deficits of $12 million and $9.4 million. It has sold property, rented out dorms, trimmed a third of its faculty, cut courses and about doubled its endowment withdrawals. In 2022, Moody’scut St. Michael’s once-robust bond rating to junk.