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More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

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Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#101

Post by [deleted] »

baby-yoda wrote: post #44
syki wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enrollment in higher ed decreased 7% from 2008 to 2018. It’s not true that colleges have been expanding with zero constraints. The increase in tuition at public colleges and universities has occurred with the decrease in public funding per student. At my system 20 years ago roughly 60% of the cost of education was publicly funded and now it is 40%. We’ve correspondingly increased tuition. https://nces.ed.gov/programs…

thank you for linking stats. going back to 1998 there is clearly huge growth. total enrollment might already be taking a hit but i am referring more to the expenditure side of things - dorm buildings, campus luxuries, etc. the figures from your link display this, IMO. especially the expenditures. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/figures/fig_12.asp but to be fair, yes the stats do indicate a decrease in enrollm…

[deleted]

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#102

Post by astura »

Aperocky wrote: post #76
rootusrootus wrote: post #57

Maybe it just got too damn expensive. I make pretty good money and I'm still planning carefully for how I'm going to deal with it for my kids (who still have 7-9 years left before college). I'm hoping that online school really takes off, and that colleges follow Georgia Tech's lead on pricing for it. OSU still wants full price for online classes, which is bogus. Beyond that, I'm going to strongly incentivize my kids…

Aren't state colleges relatively affordable (while mostly OK academically)?

I started college almost 20 years ago, so I don't know the current situation. Back then the state schools had acceptance rates of only 20%-30% because so many people wanted to go to state schools to save money. There wasn't nearly enough supply to meet demand.

I never applied to any public school, but I was legitimately worried about not being accepted. I wouldn't depend on it.

I'm really glad I went to a private college in the end. People who went to state schools said class sizes were huge (like 150 students per class) and they were being taught by TAs. I really don't think I would have succeeded in that sort of environment - At my private school we didn't have any TAs and I never had a class over ~30 people, which was important because classes were very interactive.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#103

Post by Afforess »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #84

I hope this catches on: https://www.wsj.com/articles/instead-of-tuition-students-giv... If we can align the incentives of colleges and students to find jobs, it will also be a win for the economy. Let students bargain with their future earning potential, if they don’t make anything, the school doesn’t make anything.

Here's my counter: what if, instead of taxing students after their graduation, we taxed all adults income, then used the tax proceeds to make university tuition cost-free. The advantage would be that more students would attend, we'd have a more educated society, and alumni would not be worried about having to take the best paying job instead of one that they desire.

It's win-win-win, taxpayers get free access to universities for themselves and their children, students avoid debt or garnished wages in the future, and universities get government support and can shut down complicated administrative overhead for helping students navigate financing.

Now I know your thinking - does it scale? Yes! We have data from secondary and primary schools with the same cohort of students, who attend school for no cost. Attendance and graduation of these schools is closely correlated with life outcomes and success! We could apply this existing financing model to universities and solve the problem of tuition fees with by reusing the ideas from other tuition-free primary and secondary schools.

Prob a bit long for an elevator pitch, but hey.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#104

Post by taylodl »

MattGaiser wrote: post #60
ChicagoDave wrote: post #28

I have 3 college-aged kids and one nearly there. Their universal concern is the cost. It has become prohibitive. Colleges assumed the trend of charging $25k to $50k per year would be sustainable. They were dead wrong, especially given the horrendously predatory loans backed by the government and barred from bankruptcy. If we fix the college financial system, enrollment would likely skyrocket.

Aren't state colleges must cheaper than that?

There's tuition and there's room & board. In my state the tuition is $10K/yr but the room & board is $15K/yr. It doesn't help that the largest public college in my state doesn't have enough dorm rooms for all their students so by Junior year you have to have moved out. Have you seen rent lately? Taken a look at your grocery bill? There are many costs factoring in to the high cost of higher education.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#105

Post by matt_mb »

hammock wrote: post #92
ChicagoDave wrote: post #28

I have 3 college-aged kids and one nearly there. Their universal concern is the cost. It has become prohibitive. Colleges assumed the trend of charging $25k to $50k per year would be sustainable. They were dead wrong, especially given the horrendously predatory loans backed by the government and barred from bankruptcy. If we fix the college financial system, enrollment would likely skyrocket.

College was once to be reserved for the rich elite. But central bank and government policies starting in the 70's gutted US manufacturing and took away most of the non-information worker jobs - so there was little else for the middle class to go for a career except first to college. Hence today. However, today it's easier than ever to live off the nanny state WITHOUT a career. What should the role of college be today…

>However, today it's easier than ever to live off the nanny state WITHOUT a career.

In what way?

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#106

Post by The_rationalist »

sAbakumoff wrote: post #10

why bother? you enroll to a college, you collect a huge debt that the government is not going to cancel - they prefer to give money to corporations instead. covid-19 disrupted in-person education and it's not gonna away any time soon. at the same time there are plenty of crypto startups that don't give a sh*t about education and could be pretty lukrative

No post body was provided.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#107

Post by racl101 »

- It got very expensive

- Depending on what you choose it might not even be rewarding

- You'll be saddled with crippling debt forever

Nah.

You're better off paying a couple of thousand for a coding bootcamp and have a better chance of finding some work and actually pay off the smaller debt you might have incurred.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#108

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

This is nearly a strictly American problem. Much of the rest of the world has realized that society requires and is capable of supporting advanced education for all -- after all we want humanity to be advancing, right?

America is still stuck in this alternate universe where it's a great privilege to have the opportunity to learn, which is of course true to some extent, but they really put it on a pedestal there.

Compared to the rest of the world, I think they over index on attending prestigious out-of-state and thus expensive, regardless of public or private, instead of building a really strong system for locals.

I think of my (non-US) classmates, maybe 1-2 per 100 were from a different region or country? I paid a total of $20k over five years which I easily covered with internships/summer jobs. Can you say the same in the US?

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#109

Post by ars »

Graffur wrote: post #85
bopbeepboop wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re missing two key points: 1. COVID was always going to become endemic to humans. 2. Young people are part of society — and you’re blatantly disregarding harm to them in your appeal to the “health of my society”.

Your first point makes no sense. The logic follows that we should have let the original and more deadly variants rip through society? Young people are part of society so they are obligated to protect it.

> The logic follows that we should have let the original and more deadly variants rip through society?

I participate in two communities - one that completely ignores COVID (except for a couple months at the very very beginning). They don't test, they don't care if someone is positive. Lots of people are vaccinated, but lots aren't (they all had COVID, they can't think of any reason to get vaccinated since they already are immnune).

And another one that is freaked out about COVID, mask wearing, vaccine or you are excluded from everything, social distancing, keep everything closed.

Somehow the longterm death rate is the same in both - except for those first few months. But the mental health in the open community is far better.

It's over. COVID is over. It's time to stop closing everything. Take the vaccine (or don't if that's the risk you chose to take), and stop this meaningless theater.

Re: More than 1M fewer students are in college, the lowest numbers in 50 years

#110

Post by wombat-man »

_fat_santa wrote: post #95
ChicagoDave wrote: post #28

I have 3 college-aged kids and one nearly there. Their universal concern is the cost. It has become prohibitive. Colleges assumed the trend of charging $25k to $50k per year would be sustainable. They were dead wrong, especially given the horrendously predatory loans backed by the government and barred from bankruptcy. If we fix the college financial system, enrollment would likely skyrocket.

Thought it's not as glamorous as a 4 year college experience, I highly suggest going to a Community College for the first two years and then transferring to a state school. I did this and through I resented it at the time, I existed college with around $30k in student debt versus my friends that all has something in range of ($40k to $80k). IMO 30k in student debt is very manageable, currently have the thing paid dow…

yeah, plus you have to knock out some random 100 level courses anyway. If you end up burning a semester of cc on some topics you end up hating it's a less expensive mistake.
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