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California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

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Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#21

Post by Escapado »

throwup238 wrote: post #7
readthenotes1 wrote: post #5

The headline could read: Parents and children are waking up to the student loan con game.

CSU is the cheaper state university system in California. It costs like $6,000 per year for in-state students. If they were waking up to the con game, more would be going there.

Which is still about twice of what I paid for my entire bachelors and masters education in germany and it included a ticket for the entire public transport system in my city for the entire 5 years and full access to _very_ comprehensive library (of both physical books and e-books so there was no need to buy even a single book during my studies).

I may speak from a perspective of ignorance here but I believe 6000$ a year is still prohibitively expensive for a lot of people, especially if they don't want to accrue debt.

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#22

Post by WhatsTheBigIdea »

khazhoux wrote: post #6
panzagl wrote: post #3

I know when my daughter started college 5 years ago, the dean was up front that there was a demographic cliff coming up, I wonder how much of the decline is that.

what's a "demographic cliff"?

The number of people who are in the traditional college age bracket is falling as a result of variations in the birthrate and immigration rate.

Some schools are more effected by these demographic issues than others. Institutions that are focused on educating lots of people economically, like CSU, can be expected to feel the demographic swings far more than places like Stanford or Berkeley which are over-subscribed and are likely to remain so.

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#23

Post by shuckles »

Escapado wrote: post #21
throwup238 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CSU is the cheaper state university system in California. It costs like $6,000 per year for in-state students. If they were waking up to the con game, more would be going there.

Which is still about twice of what I paid for my entire bachelors and masters education in germany and it included a ticket for the entire public transport system in my city for the entire 5 years and full access to _very_ comprehensive library (of both physical books and e-books so there was no need to buy even a single book during my studies). I may speak from a perspective of ignorance here but I believe 6000$ a y…

Americans take home a lot more money than Germans.

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#24

Post by Enginerrrd »

Is this really surprising?

Let's just look at US demographics right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta...

Looking at the chart, I'd expect to have seen a drop in enrollments among those younger than early to mid 20's over the last few years. 6% easily seems en par with the demographics shift.

If that reasoning is correct, we'll see a slight recovery or stabilization peaking in about 5 years or so and then steady declines until who knows when.

Colleges all over the nation will be competing for students for the at least the next 2 decades.

Prices will drop, and offerings will probably be more tailored to offer better value, and that may improve/stabilize enrollment rates somewhat, but the overall trend will be down.

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#25

Post by wnevets »

> According to the Education Data Initiative, college enrollment statistics indicate that more Americans are forgoing higher education; “some may be putting off college attendance to build savings.”

Less demand should reduce the price to attend, right?

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#26

Post by JohnFen »

Simulacra wrote: post #15

The link goes to a page where you were asked to download an app to read the rest of the story

I could read the whole story and wasn't asked to download an app to do it. This is an MSN page, though, which is incredibly obnoxious and filled with all sorts of weird crap that makes it harder to see the article.

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#27

Post by pavon »

neogodless wrote: post #9
khazhoux wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what's a "demographic cliff"?

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2016/... Take a look at the 20-24 and 15-19 age groups. Note that 15-19 is smaller, and consider that members of that age group will move up to the next group over the next 5 years. They're also entering typical college age. Now, in this chart, it's far from a "cliff", but it is smaller, so that would mean that you could reasonably expect a lower enrollment since…

Note that chart is from 2015, here is a more recent one[1]. There is no drop in current college age students, in fact the birth rate saw slight growth in the decade leading up to today's 18 year olds. There has since been a significant decrease in birth rate, but it shouldn't have affected college enrollment yet.

Edit: Enginerrrd posted data[2] with more fidelity than the 5-year bins both of our charts were using, and it indeed shows a cliff for this year.

[1]https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/stories/20...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39682145

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#28

Post by thehappypm »

Escapado wrote: post #21
throwup238 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CSU is the cheaper state university system in California. It costs like $6,000 per year for in-state students. If they were waking up to the con game, more would be going there.

Which is still about twice of what I paid for my entire bachelors and masters education in germany and it included a ticket for the entire public transport system in my city for the entire 5 years and full access to _very_ comprehensive library (of both physical books and e-books so there was no need to buy even a single book during my studies). I may speak from a perspective of ignorance here but I believe 6000$ a y…

I don’t know, I think it’s still a good deal, I’d rather have cheap tuition and low taxes than high taxes and no tuition

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#29

Post by [deleted] »

throwup238 wrote: post #7
readthenotes1 wrote: post #5

The headline could read: Parents and children are waking up to the student loan con game.

CSU is the cheaper state university system in California. It costs like $6,000 per year for in-state students. If they were waking up to the con game, more would be going there.

[deleted]

Re: California State University system sees unprecedented decline in enrollment

#30

Post by alephnerd »

r00fus wrote: post #12
KerrAvon wrote: post #4

The article is pretty light on facts. I wish there was some real analysis here. There's no shame in going to CSU traditionally; lots of great schools in the system and certainly fine alumni.

CSU contains the very highly regarded Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. As with other networks of schools there are more desirable and less desirable ones, but yeah, it's IMHO pretty close to a U of [STATE] in quality.

SJSU and SDSU engineering as well.

Cal Poly SLO, SJSU Engineering, and SDSU Engineering have similar admission statistics to upper mid tier UCs like UCI and UCSB.

I'm still a bit salty that I got into an Ivy Tier but got rejected from UCD and SLO.

SLO and SJSU are honestly amazing programs and along with UTD, UW Bothell, and UIC should be a model for high quality affordable education.

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