The higher ed bubble continues to grow.

Jonathan Marks reports at Minding the Campus.

A Gloomy Poll of College Officers

Inside Higher Ed has released its survey of College and University Officers. The news is largely not good for those who long for an early return to health for colleges and universities..

The headline is that eighteen percent of those surveyed agree that “My institution is unlikely to shut down in the near term, but may have to in the coming decades.” In itself, that may not be big news. Inside Higher Ed hasn’t asked the same question before, so we don’t know how this year compares to prior ones. And “may have to” is a permissive standard. Even so, the following number startling.

At private institutions that offer only bachelor degrees, 38% of business officers surveyed said their institutions, though safe in the near term, may have to shut down in the coming decades. The number is startling in part because the present difficulties of our colleges and universities have something to do with the recent economic crisis and something to do with a decline in the number of high school graduates in many parts of the country. Neither trend is permanent.

But many college and university financial officers, who are certainly in a position to know, evidently think that the challenges to their own institutions are here to stay. More broadly, 56% think that media descriptions of a financial “crisis” in higher education are accurate. How often do people who know a business think that media reports about it are accurate?