With respect, while I am sympathetic to the creative destructive dogma of capitalism, I see reality considerably differently. I don't mean to be banal but the

With respect, while I am sympathetic to the creative destructive dogma of capitalism, I see reality considerably differently. I don't mean to be banal but the business of colleges is not "education". A large hall, an instructor, and a whiteboard is not competitive from the perspective of the customer base, nor is it attractive from the perspective of those who would populate the whiteboard with whatever. What parents and students pay for is essentially a moderately supervised, branded, summer sleepaway camp experience (full year) filled with nice sounding time-occupying activities and vague, often unfulfilled, and also unaccountable promises that at the end of the camp experience someone will be willing to pay to utilize the time of the student, rather than the student/parents paying to have their time occupied. There are various ways to creatively package the elements of that experience into a product, but in the "lean" formulations- like Lambda School- there is no real estate, no large hall. Real estate is expensive. I think what we actually would see- are already seeing- in the closure of the bespoke, idiosyncratic small private colleges likely to die is the chain restaurant version of the bespoke, idiosyncratic small family restaurants that have largely gone by the wayside in American culture. They will have a consistent brand, will cost maybe a little less, will pay their mostly expendable teaching staff considerably less, with no tenure (though performance bonuses and maybe equity grants for the stars, the way any sensibly managed business operates these days), with a manufactured curriculum delivered consistently across the "franchises" and with lots of entertainment and parent-appealing safety/oversight options, lots of addons for extra fees (semester abroad, anyone?), and some structure around the time-occupying activities that may- no guarantees- lead to eventual employment. Welcome to Olive Garden, can I take your classroom order please? Mediocre consistency at scale is how America works. Cheers.