Woke ideology turned America's colleges into political indoctrination centers.
Students and parents are making some tough choices.
And woke colleges got some bad news that confirmed it's the end of the line.
One in four colleges won't survive what's coming
Brandeis University President Arthur Levine dropped a bomb during a recent American Enterprise Institute event.
Between 20 and 25 percent of colleges will close their doors in the coming years.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia backed him up with hard numbers showing up to 80 colleges could shut down between 2025 and 2029.
In 2024 alone, 28 colleges closed compared to just 15 in 2023.
Nearly 300 colleges have disappeared since 2008 as enrollment crashed.
The number of 18-year-old high school graduates peaked in 2025 at 3.9 million and will drop 13 percent by 2041.
Students and parents looked at what colleges became and decided four years studying woke nonsense wasn't worth the debt.
Colleges created patronage jobs for the woke elite and stuck students with the bill
The University of Michigan spent $250 million on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs since 2016.
Michigan employs over 1,100 people working on DEI with 241 full-time employees costing taxpayers $30.68 million per year.
That money could cover in-state tuition for 1,781 undergraduate students.
Michigan's Chief Diversity Officer earns $402,800 annually, nearly twice what the average full professor makes and 2.5 times more than Michigan's governor.
Thirteen DEI staffers earn more than $200,000 and 66 earn more than $100,000 when including benefits.
Ohio State University more than doubled its DEI staff in five years from 88 employees in 2018 to 189 in 2023.
Payroll costs nearly tripled from $7.3 million to $20.38 million, enough to fund 1,586 students' annual tuition.
Ohio State's Chief Diversity Officer James Moore earns $299,000 while the school raised tuition repeatedly.
The average DEI salary at Michigan is $96,400, which jumps to more than $127,000 with benefits.
Students graduate with degrees in gender studies, queer ecologies, and critical race theory that don't qualify them for real jobs.
Ohio State offers a class called "Queer Ecologies: Gender, Sexuality, & the Environment" that uses "animal studies, queer and feminist social movements" to teach about climate change.
Try explaining to a job interviewer how expertise in "trans*natures" prepared you for the workforce.
Students figured out woke degrees don't lead to careers
The New York Times investigated Michigan's $250 million DEI spending and found it made students less happy and more divided.
Student surveys showed campus climate got worse and students were less likely to interact with people of different backgrounds after DEI programs expanded.
Race and gender grievances exploded with students filing more complaints than ever.
Colleges transformed from places of learning into political activism centers that prepared students for nothing except more activism.
Only 62 percent of high school seniors enroll in college now compared to 68 percent in 2010.
Students chose trade schools and apprenticeships over expensive degrees that don't lead to jobs.
An electrician or plumber makes $75,000 to $100,000 per year without student loan debt.
A graduate with a degree in LGBT literature or intersectionality studies ends up working at Starbucks while drowning in debt.
Parents paying $90,000 per year watched their kids learn about "heteronormativity" and "systemic oppression" instead of preparing for careers.
The bill comes due for woke administrators
Brandeis University discounts tuition by more than 60 percent just to fill seats.
The university ran a $1.7 million deficit in 2024 despite desperate cost-cutting measures.
Former President Ron Liebowitz resigned after a faculty no-confidence vote over his budget crisis.
Each college closure affects an average of 265 jobs and $14 million in labor income.
Half of students whose colleges closed between 2004 and 2020 never re-enrolled at another institution.
They're stuck paying for degrees they never finished.
Florida shut down DEI offices at government schools after enrollment tanked.
The state cut hundreds of courses on race, sex, and gender from general education and kicked sociology off the graduation requirements list.
Texas went further with Senate Bill 17, which wiped out DEI offices and now makes university presidents personally approve any class pushing "race or gender ideology, sexual orientation, or gender identity."
Schools in Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida can't accept all the students applying.
Meanwhile colleges in the Northeast and Midwest keep closing.
President Trump terminated DEI discrimination in federal funding and contracting within days of taking office.
The Education Department demanded colleges eliminate race-conscious practices or lose federal funding.
Ohio State shut down its Office of Diversity and Inclusion after spending years building the bureaucracy.
Michigan's Board of Regents is getting hammered to shut down the university's quarter-billion-dollar DEI disaster.
The "Go Woke, Go Broke" movement that destroyed woke corporations is killing higher education.
Colleges told Americans for decades they needed expensive degrees to succeed.
Those institutions are collapsing because they destroyed their own value by becoming political activism centers that produce unemployable graduates.
The schools that survive will prepare students for the workforce instead of indoctrinating them with ideology that makes them unemployable.
Sources:
- Hanna Bechtel, "Up To 25% Of US Colleges May Close Soon, Brandeis President Warns," Zero Hedge, January 23, 2026.
- Jennifer Kabbany, "UMich now has more than 500 jobs dedicated to DEI, payroll costs exceed $30 million," The College Fix, January 9, 2024.
- Jennifer Kabbany, "Pressure grows for UMich to end its failed $250 million DEI experiment," The College Fix, November 25, 2024.
- Alexis Stewart, "Ohio State University doubled DEI staff in five years, payroll costs almost tripled," The College Fix, November 3, 2023.
- Nicholas Confessore, "University of Michigan spent $250 million on DEI, made students unhappier," Reason, October 16, 2024.
- "Waste of the Day: Ohio State Spends on DEI, Bug-Eating and More," RealClearInvestigations, January 14, 2025.
- Robert J. Kelchen, Dubravka Ritter, Douglas A. Webber, "Predicting College Closures and Financial Distress," Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, December 2024.
- Marina Villeneuve, Olivia Sanchez, "Tracking college closures," The Hechinger Report, October 21, 2024.
