Meta is shutting down its student social network within Facebook, Campus

Meta has announced that later this month they will be shutting down Facebook’s Campus feature, a section of the app specifically for students, just like Facebook used to be. 

Initially launched in September of 2020, Facebook’s Campus feature allowed students in 60 colleges and universities to connect with one another through their own dedicated platform, one without all the noise from Facebook’s usual constant stream of posts and content. 

Eventually expanding to 204 schools, the Campus feature even allowed users to create a separate profile from their required Facebook account, however, the pilot has never seen widespread adoption and is subsequently being killed off. 

In a statement announcing that “Campus is going away soon,” as spotted by social media consultant Matt Navarra, Meta said that “since we launched the Campus pilot, it’s been our mission to help bring college communities closer together. But we’ve learned that the best way to support students is through Facebook Groups.” 

As a result, “Campus will no longer be available after March 10” Meta confirmed.

According to a statement given to The Verge, users from the Campus pilot will be pointed towards relevant college Facebook groups to join, so they’re not just being left abandoned while all their profiles, groups, posts, and other data from Campus is deleted permanently. 

Facebook is shutting down its Campus feature on March 10 pic.twitter.com/DUCmVu9Eup

— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) March 2, 2022

With Meta never giving the Campus feature an app of its own, and instead just being a side category of Facebook proper, it’s hardly a surprise that the niche feature never saw widespread adoption when the main core of Facebook was right there for students to utilize.