You know who is fighting for survival? Mid sized private institutions. Scale always wins, always. I'm looking at you BC, Cuse, Duke, Wake and Miami or a good portion of the gACC
The old line Catholic Schools lead that list of privates in trouble.
These schools are overpriced and really only politely Catholic, to some Catholics even a tad heretical. Most of their recent grads would not know the difference between the magisterium and a magistrate.(hyperbole alert)
Their original mission has long been forgotten. They are actual anactronisms.
This puts them in direct competition with established non sectarian privates and less expensive publics.
Some of these schools were once considered the Ivys for U.S. Catholics
They were fed by a huge Urban/Suburban Catholic sub-culture that is now,rapidly disappearing ,melting into the general population ,with a resulting loss of its identity.
The success of these schools actually mirrored the sucess of this culture ,with its disappearance they will be hit the hardest.
The Georgetowns will survive as non Catholic., but lesser Institutions will be hard pressed to compete as highly priced non-sectarian privates. This is not new to the US. As the New England Calvinist theocracy collapsed, schools like Yale and Harvard moved away from it quickly.Today their origins are all but forgotten.
If future demographics are an issue in CR than anyone gambling on a religious based school is playing Russian Roulette.
