DISPATCHES FROM THE EDUCATION APOCALYPSE: The Quote Investigator Website explores if a statement by the late management consultant and author Peter Drucker regarding higher education’s future – or the lack thereof – is apocryphal or true.

In 2011 an article in “The New Republic” about online education reprinted remarks of Drucker:

As early as the Internet mania of the late ’90s, higher education has been singled out as ripe for a technology-driven revolution. And looking back at the grandiose predictions of the time, it’s fair to say that such claims deserve a dose of skepticism. In 1997, for instance, legendary management guru Peter Drucker predicted that “Thirty years from now the big university campuses will be relics. Universities won’t survive. It’s as large a change as when we first got the printed book.” Fourteen years later, the big universities are bigger and (after a stellar year for endowment investments) richer than almost ever before.

In conclusion, Peter Drucker did deliver the quotation during an interview published in “Forbes” in 1997. The thirty year prediction runs until 2027.

Based on their current implosion, that timeline seems somewhat generous.