Discussing the # of Higher Education Institutions? Distinctions in sectors are important...

It is a bit hard to believe that a month passed since the announcement of Sweet Briar's possible closure?  Among the recent flurry of articles and blog entries, Jon Boeckenstedt's post on March 4, 2015 still stands out with his call for caution before jumping to conclusions, "I'm not saying these people are wrong;  you can get in trouble arguing with self-proclaimed prophets, and until something either comes to fruition or it doesn't, all you have is a lot of heated discussion."  

While my data visualization skills don't come close to what Jon displays in his posts, two very different patterns are evident when reviewing changes in the numbers of institutions.  Chart #1 below uses data from the Digest of Education Statistics to show that we have just slightly more public [6% increase] and non-profit [1% increase] institutions in 2013 than we did in 1987.  In any given year a few institutions close and a few new ones are founded...overall, it is a picture of stability in the number of institutions.

For-profits are another story with an increase of 510% over this same period, though closures for Corinthian and a number of smaller companies will likely reduce their numbers by a couple of hundred campuses before we close the books on 2015.