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What happens to college towns after peak 18-year-old?

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Re: What happens to college towns after peak 18-year-old?

#31

Post by onionisafruit »

Imnimo wrote: post #25
svaha1728 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kyla Scanlon is speaking from personal experience. It can be a great school if you put in the effort. Will the market will reward that effort with a job? Maybe.

In my book a great school would likely have a low-ish acceptance rate. And so they could (even though they may not be happy about it) absorb some amount of declining applications by adjusting their acceptance bar. WKU's acceptance rate is like 95%. They're already taking ~everyone who applies. I question whether school quality truly plays no role at an institution which struggles to find a student they wouldn't admit…

Some people, when encountering a queue, will take the position at the end of the queue. They trust there wouldn’t be a queue if the reward weren’t worth the wait.

Why is rejecting prospective students something you expect a great school to do?

Re: What happens to college towns after peak 18-year-old?

#32

Post by Calavar »

terminalshort wrote: post #19
wrp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't close. They will just rely more heavily on foreign students. The primary focus of academia is to remain employed, not to serve the needs of the domestic student population.

This only works for exclusive, high prestige schools. Not many rich foreigners are going to pay full freight to send their kids to Western Kentucky University.

America itself and the opportunity to get your foot in the door with a student visa is the prestige factor for many students - the prestige of the university is secondary. That allows a lit of third tier universities to fill their master's programs with international students

Re: What happens to college towns after peak 18-year-old?

#33

Post by hakfoo »

Imnimo wrote: post #25
svaha1728 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kyla Scanlon is speaking from personal experience. It can be a great school if you put in the effort. Will the market will reward that effort with a job? Maybe.

In my book a great school would likely have a low-ish acceptance rate. And so they could (even though they may not be happy about it) absorb some amount of declining applications by adjusting their acceptance bar. WKU's acceptance rate is like 95%. They're already taking ~everyone who applies. I question whether school quality truly plays no role at an institution which struggles to find a student they wouldn't admit…

A high acceptance rate isn't a problem. It represents distinct operational choices.

We've decided that a four-year degree is today's high-school diploma, so that means that you need to produce a lot of them. But you don't need a top tier research university to produce a stream of reasonably competent first-year teachers, engineers, feeders into medical and law programs, etc.

That can still be an excellent school. It doesn't have to deliver moonshots-- it has to serve its purpose.

Just because a school is highly selective doesn't mean that it produces a quality educational product or is serving the needs of its community. How many top schools are "selective" because they're mostly places for the children of the 1% to mingle before taking over Daddy's business? Are they going to be pushovers for grade inflation after asking for the cost of a condo for a semester's tuition?

Re: What happens to college towns after peak 18-year-old?

#34

Post by beachtaxidriver »

cheschire wrote: post #27

So... off to the trades then?

Maybe. But last I checked the trades pay horrible and destroy your body by 40.

Every story of the trades pay well is just "be a trades business owner" well okay, but basically every alternative "be a X business owner" pays better.

Re: What happens to college towns after peak 18-year-old?

#35

Post by collingreen »

terminalshort wrote: post #22
stouset wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can literally just strike the words “state funded” from your sentence. If you don’t think companies function exactly this way, I’m not sure what to tell you. And in a world where every competitor in a given market is owned by one of two or three megaconglomerates, “voting with your feet” stopped mattering long ago.

For one thing, very few markets are like that, and even then they face the threat of new entrants if they suck. e.g. the cab companies that got blown out by Uber. You are right that they fundamentally operate the same way as state funded entities, but having a revenue stream that is completely divorced from providing economic value allows the institution to keep its doors open at levels of rot 10x that which it takes…

Uber had to break a lot of laws and grease a lot of palms to do what they did and they still lose mountains of investor money every quarter (almost every? When they aren't liquidating regional divisions and calling those wins).

I don't think we want a system together where the way to make it work is to cheat and increase corruption. Maybe there are better examples of good ol' fashioned honest companies just plan ol' out competing entrenched incumbents without cheating or lying or hurting the public.

Re: What happens to college towns after peak 18-year-old?

#36

Post by olyjohn »

terminalshort wrote: post #19
wrp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't close. They will just rely more heavily on foreign students. The primary focus of academia is to remain employed, not to serve the needs of the domestic student population.

This only works for exclusive, high prestige schools. Not many rich foreigners are going to pay full freight to send their kids to Western Kentucky University.

The community college I used to work at made its bread and butter from foreign students. Super mega rich parents sent their kids there. Many of them drove expensive cars. Community colleges in the US are actually highly regarded in a lot of places overseas, believe it or not. And this wasn't in some big city either. It was in kind of a town that isn't very well known for being a safe place to walk around at night.

Re: What happens to college towns after peak 18-year-old?

#37

Post by wrp »

jeremyjh wrote: post #5
wrp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't close. They will just rely more heavily on foreign students. The primary focus of academia is to remain employed, not to serve the needs of the domestic student population.

Is there any profession where they aren't focused on staying employed?

In medicine and law, it is unethical and sometimes illegal to choose your course of action based on profitability against the needs of the client. Teaching has been traditionally been held to the same ethical standard.

Re: What happens to college towns after peak 18-year-old?

#38

Post by relaxing »

terminalshort wrote: post #19
wrp wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't close. They will just rely more heavily on foreign students. The primary focus of academia is to remain employed, not to serve the needs of the domestic student population.

This only works for exclusive, high prestige schools. Not many rich foreigners are going to pay full freight to send their kids to Western Kentucky University.

There’s no shortage of rich foreigners with failsons who can’t get into Prestige U.

Re: What happens to college towns after peak 18-year-old?

#39

Post by alwa »

wrp wrote: post #37
jeremyjh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any profession where they aren't focused on staying employed?

In medicine and law, it is unethical and sometimes illegal to choose your course of action based on profitability against the needs of the client. Teaching has been traditionally been held to the same ethical standard.

And to their credit, a healthy chunk of those practitioners seem to hold true to their oaths. The swelling ranks of administrators “optimizing their productivity” for the shareholders, on the other hand…

Re: What happens to college towns after peak 18-year-old?

#40

Post by Imnimo »

onionisafruit wrote: post #31
Imnimo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my book a great school would likely have a low-ish acceptance rate. And so they could (even though they may not be happy about it) absorb some amount of declining applications by adjusting their acceptance bar. WKU's acceptance rate is like 95%. They're already taking ~everyone who applies. I question whether school quality truly plays no role at an institution which struggles to find a student they wouldn't admit…

Some people, when encountering a queue, will take the position at the end of the queue. They trust there wouldn’t be a queue if the reward weren’t worth the wait. Why is rejecting prospective students something you expect a great school to do?

I would expect a great school to be appealing to potential students, and therefore attract a lot of them. I would also expect a great school to have high academic standards that not all applicants meet.
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