It also shows that the higher education bubble is real. The New York Post reports:Alarming number of small US colleges are struggling to pay their bills — and misusing donations to stay openHundreds of small US colleges are struggling to pay their bills — and some are misusing scholarship funds and endowments to stay afloat. And the number of schools drawing from endowments at 15% tripled during the same period, hitting 5% as of 2025, according to an assessment of 1,000 schools from Perspective Data Science. “A lot of schools are doing whatever they can to keep the lights on,” Perspective Data Science founder Matthew Hendriks told the Journal. “She told me they used it to pay the bills,” Strouse told the Journal.