While the country remains fixated on the tensions between the Trump administration and elite research universities, a more insidious threat to many other institutions of higher education is brewing. Its cause isn’t one single factor but a set of pressures emanating from demographic changes, shifts in the public’s perception of the value of a college education in relation to its costs, increased operating costs, emerging alternatives to traditional colleges, and, of late, possible changes in federal policies and programs. The net effect is that many institutions are much closer to the brink of closure than they have been in the past.