Higher education’s squeeze shows why leaders with neither premium power nor low costs can be first to crack when demand turns against them badly. Private colleges now discount their sticker price by a record 57 percent for first-year students, and net tuition revenue is falling. On July 1, new federal caps on student loans took effect, squeezing the business model that funds much of higher education. Dozens of schools are cutting academic programs and staff to close budget gaps. These pressures look like a story about weak colleges failing. The deeper pattern is an industry splitting into two, with the strong ends pulling away from a collapsing middle. That raises a question every leader should ask about their own market: when demand shrinks, which competitors die first?