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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

#51

Post by sylens »

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.

Yes, it's quite clearly this.

Millennials have been out there for nearly a decade yelling on social media about how ridiculous their student loans are. Kids on the precipice of college have started paying attention. Combine that with the restrictions for Covid, and you have a lot of kids who don't think that taking on tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars in debt is worth it for some Zoom classes.

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

#52

Post by achenatx »

rjzzleep wrote: post #7
fortran77 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And now there are movements to eliminate SATs or similar standardized tests, allowing more unqualified students to enter college. Enrollment might also be down because of COVID. For many, I think, college is more about getting away from home and living in a fun-filled alternate world for a few years with dorm rooms, frat parties, etc. With remote classes and restrictions, why bother? (I'm imagining here -- I commuted…

SATs are the dumbest thing I've encountered in testing. In the US scoring high in some SATs will even qualify you for Mensa(gifted stamp). There are a handful of companies that own a huge margin of the standardized testing market(Pearson being one of them). From selling new test learning books every year, to the massive global standardized testing training market. Maybe the movements to eliminate SATs have a differen…

The average is not great, but it hides the underlying cause. If you look into education scores more closely you will find that subpopulations have greatly varying results. This implies that it isnt just about schools.

The same goes for infant mortality. People cite infant mortality as evidence that our healthcare system sucks. But really infant mortality is clustered in certain sub populations.

The same goes for murder rates and gun violence.

Unfortunately the problems cannot be fixed until people admit and are willing to talk about the underlying actual root causes.

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

#53

Post by rossdavidh »

As the father of a 16-year old, I can say that the current generation of teenagers has heard a lot more about the issues of college debt than previous generations did. Partly because it's a lot higher, partly because even if newsmedia doesn't report on it, there are enough adults out there saddled with it that they just hear about it from a relative or friend. It used to be a no-brainer; you go to college if you can. No longer.

Any industry that sees nothing but expansion for decades, has a rough time when it stops. I think higher ed is in for a rough time.

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

#54

Post by isoskeles »

modernpink wrote: post #42
syki wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my college system I’m responsible for cleaning my classroom after each use. If I forget to do this and a student gets sick then I’m personally liable. I’m not paid enough to clean classrooms and teach and I’m not taking on the liability. Thus, I haven’t taught in the classroom for the last 2 years.

That is outrageous if true. An airborne virus is best treated with ventilation (i.e. opening windows). Surface transmission almost never happens [1]. The irony of course being that having a cleaner go in and out of rooms poses much greater risk of spread. [1] COVID-19 rarely spreads through surfaces. So why are we still deep cleaning? https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00251-4

I went to the hospital two days ago. Plenty of COVID warnings were posted all over the place. One was a sign, last updated in February of 2020, that suggested you leave if you’ve been in contact with anyone who recently travelled to China, Korea, Iran, or Italy.

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

#55

Post by bopbeepboop »

inanutshellus wrote: post #40
disambiguation wrote: post #27

Less than 3k kids under the age of 24 have died from covid since the start of the pandemic [0] yet they have some how wound up with the harshest restrictions. These kids will never get these years back. What a disgrace. [0] https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-by-Sex...

"I'm young and healthy, I should be allowed to spread a new virus to the entire planet. The health of my society is not my responsibility. What a disgrace."

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”.

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

#56

Post by epistasis »

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.

I've heard tales of people with interest rates of 7%+ on student loans, and the official rates are not incredibly low either:

https://studentaid.gov/understand-aid/types/loans/interest-r...

Any loan that is charging 6.28% interest and also cant be discharged by bankruptcy is just usury with current interest rates.

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

#57

Post by rootusrootus »

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 to stay home the first couple years and hit the local community college for the first half of their degree, just because it's dramatically cheaper than what it'll cost to send them to live at a university.

I thought college was expensive when I was going in the 90s. Now it's just ridiculous.

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

#58

Post by treis »

modernpink wrote: post #42
syki wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my college system I’m responsible for cleaning my classroom after each use. If I forget to do this and a student gets sick then I’m personally liable. I’m not paid enough to clean classrooms and teach and I’m not taking on the liability. Thus, I haven’t taught in the classroom for the last 2 years.

That is outrageous if true. An airborne virus is best treated with ventilation (i.e. opening windows). Surface transmission almost never happens [1]. The irony of course being that having a cleaner go in and out of rooms poses much greater risk of spread. [1] COVID-19 rarely spreads through surfaces. So why are we still deep cleaning? https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00251-4

>That is outrageous if true

It's not true.

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

#59

Post by claytonjy »

Bostonian wrote: post #2

I've read that more Americans start college than in other developed countries but that the fraction of college graduates is similar. This suggests that there are too many unqualified students attending college in the U.S., and if the declining enrollments are coming primarily from that group, it's a good thing.

I am rather certain that, at least when I attended a decade ago, my university leaned into this as a revenue source.

My school, Michigan Tech, is in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, a remote location averaging over 200" of snow per year with the nearest major city over 5 hours away, and most students traveling 8+ hours from their parent's homes in SE Michigan. The application was 4 pages long: 1 page of info, 2 pages for me to fill out, 1 for my guidance counselor. No essays. So, very easy to be accepted to, 90%+ acceptance rate.

The second year return rate was below 70% at the time, and anecdotally many freshmen didn't return for second semester after going home for Christmas. Not only is it remote, cold, and not sunny, but there was a dearth of women and some tough weeder classes (chemistry, calc 2).

If you can finish, you're in a great spot. Eng degrees from there are quite well regarded regionally (competitive with University of Michigan) and graduates had lower debt than any other school in the state. It seems obvious that the university avoided a more stringent up-front filter so it could soak kids for a year or two before forcing them out due to grades or environment.

I'm not sure that's entirely unreasonable, as I'm not sure how they could predict who would leave due to environment, but I also knew many freshmen who were obviously not setup to succeed academically, and didn't.

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

#60

Post by MattGaiser »

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?
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