Higher education has seen a wave of university closures in recent years. While data has been valuable in understanding the scale of these difficulties, there are real people and places behind the numbers. I decided to do a classic American road trip to dead and dying colleges this past summer, chronicling what the sector was losing through ethnographic research.
The road trip was more than 3,000 miles long and brought me to 12 campuses, taking me through the Rust Belt region—to Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Syracuse and Cincinnati—to Plains cities like St. Louis, Oklahoma City and Tulsa and finally back home to the West Coast, with stops in Santa Fe and Albuquerque along the way.
The Eeriness of Dead Campuses
During my tour, no one was waiting for me at campus welcome centers. I did see my share of tattered signs welcoming newcomers. They were no longer welcoming students, but rather construction crews clearing out buildings.
In physically walking through these spaces, I felt the immensity of their history. Campuses were often sprawling and in the middle of nowhere, even more so now that the somewhere had closed.
There is a concept of liminal spaces, empty yet normal settings that evoke an unease. Walking around these uninhabited campuses and buildings, I kept imagining that they were once filled with hundreds if not thousands of people. It was like exploring a lost civilization—forgotten iconography and busted artifacts in crumbling buildings.
Those crumbling buildings were part of what broke these institutions. When neglected, the costs of repair can grow exponentially. I saw firsthand the cracks in the sidewalk at Notre Dame College in Ohio and the busted concrete at Bacone College in Oklahoma.
Returning to Nature
On some of the campuses, nature was taking back what once belonged to students. Instead of undergrads napping on the campus quad, I saw buzzing insects and whistling birds in tall grass.
At Urbana University in Ohio, I stumbled on a herd of deer grazing. Alone and at sunset, it was a majestic sight.
At the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, some kind of prairie dog creature popped its head up when I was plodding across the baking desert campus. It made a loud click, a warning to the rest of its coterie that a human had returned, before diving back into its burrow.
Plants, too, thrived without lost freshmen late for class making desire paths across the grass. While no campus I visited was completely overrun, they were often shabbier than the manicured lawns I’m used to at thriving universities. The trip reminded me that grounds crews might be the unsung heroes on our campuses.
Lost Space, Lost Memory, Lost Icons
It was somber seeing cherished civic institutions, central to local identities, shuttered. The colleges I toured were third places that locals enjoyed for recreation or gathering. No more.
Cazenovia College once sat in a prominent location within the walkable downtown of Cazenovia, N.Y., before shuttering in 2023. Locals told me that they used to enjoy the campus greenery, walking their dogs or letting kids play on the grass. But now the New York State Police has taken over the campus for use as a police academy. With heightened security in place, locals have been barred from their strolls.
Restricted access at Cazenovia College.
The campus spaces I visited held considerable cultural meaning and memories. I saw countless signs for the “Class of …” or “In Memory of…” and even gravestones.
Bacone College in Muskogee, Okla.—which has stopped enrolling students—was the nation’s “oldest American Indian institution of higher learning.” The campus is the site of a small graveyard and a memorial for tribal members lost in wars.
At Urbana University, there was a memorial for three Chinese students killed in a car accident in 2007. “Gone but Not Forgotten,” read the stone carving. I was touched by the story of these international students, far from home on an adventure, at the start of their lives, tragically cut short.
I even stumbled on what was essentially a funeral for Wells College, as a group of alumni gathered for a final tradition of ringing the dinner bell before the campus closed for good. Many were laying flowers and messages where a beloved Minerva statue once sat for more than 150 years, decapitated just days before during a bungled moving process.
The metaphor was almost too on the nose for the attendees.
A makeshift memorial at Wells College.
Rebirth
The visits were often sad, but that was only half of the story. Some institutions were making the best of their transitions.
In Shawnee, Okla., after St. Gregory’s University closed in 2017, the campus was contentiously sold off to the owners of Hobby Lobby and donated to nearby Oklahoma Baptist University.
I was expecting a depressing abandoned college like others I had seen on the trip. I found the opposite.
When I arrived, the campus was buzzing with volunteers working to move brush and debris from a recent storm. There was even a museum started by a world-traveling Benedictine monk more than 100 years ago still in operation with an impressive collection that families were enjoying.
You see, the monks who still operate St. Gregory’s Abbey made a deal with the Baptist institution for a land swap, getting back their former college buildings.
The monks and volunteers were excited by the return and the potential new direction. Yes, it was no longer a university, but it could still be an important touchstone for the community. They were hoping that the dorms could be adapted into senior or affordable housing.
St. Gregory’s University
I felt similar excitement at Medaille University in Buffalo, N.Y., which was being converted into a charter school. An administrator even invited me back in the fall to see their successful launch.
What’s Next?
At the end of my trip, I visited the former Marymount California University, which sits on the bluffs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula overlooking the Pacific. On a clear day, Catalina Island is visible from the campus green. This is some of the most desirable land in the U.S., but the affluent area meant upkeep was expensive and student residences were a farther drive inland.
The University of California, Los Angeles, has now taken over the campus, emphasizing research on sustainability.
Many of the people I talked to had hoped that their closing institution would be taken over by other educational institutions, whether another university or a K-12 school. Even then, the old legacy of the spaces may fade.
In Cincinnati, Edgecliff College long ago merged with Xavier University (in 1980), but its old campus became the site of luxury high-rise condos.
More colleges will close in the coming years. Some will find adaptive reuses that will carry on their educational legacies or service missions. Many, unfortunately, will not. These places, the campuses, the communities and their cultures, all deserve to be remembered beyond numbers on a spreadsheet.
