College enrollment is falling at a 'concerning' rate, new data reveals

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/08/college-enrollment-declining

As a parent with a kid in college, I can tell you that it is mostly a lack of financial support that makes it impossible for these kids to justify going to college. Here's what they do: 1) there are caps on the borrowing amount that are way to low to help on all federal student loans that are available. 2) Even if the student has been living independently on their own, and not claimed on their parents tax forms, they are required to meet a high standard of credit rating in order to qualify for a loan without a cosigner. This forces the parent to mortgage their future as cosigner, because no good parent would deny their child a future. THIS IS FUCKING EXTORTION by the federal government and it is WRONG! I am retired an now have about 20,000 in private student loan debt to deal with. We need the government to make our federally chartered universities fully funded so kid s can get a higher education to allow the US to compete in the global economy. It will never happen otherwise.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. We live in an age where a few sharp digital skills can grow a 6-figure career

in no time at all. Why learn at school for years at $40-120k when you can do it all now at low cost?

[getagrip_already]

2. Extortion? Its the cost... not how to pay for it

Yachts are expensive also. But its not extortion that they cost millions of dollars.

When i went to school, it was ~$7500 a year for tuition and board. This was at Tufts university.

This year, tuition is roughly ~$80k just for tuition and fees. It's closer to $100k for tuition and board. It is now one of the hardest schools in the country to get into.

Even UMASS is expensive, though nowhere near that.

Tuition is just out of control. And that has been driven by consumerism. Parents and students demand the best of everything, mostly luxuries having everything to do with the educational experience and little to do with actual education.

Add to that the fact that employers dont actually value many degrees because they dont really mean much any longer, and what do you expect?

So no, it isnt governments fault. They dont need to pay anyone.

Let colleges collapse. Then rebuild them into something of value. Not glorified party resorts.

[Farmer-Rick]

3. Just because colleges aren't getting as many students

Doesn't mean they will collapse. Colleges and Universities did just fine when only the filthy-rich went. They just expand their customer
base to include the recent new rich and rich foreign students. Then make all donations tax deductible.

The filthy-rich send their kids to these hugely over priced institutions, while offering scholarships to the smartest and brightest to make it look like it's a good educational experience. Look how high our average SAT scores are. Well duh, it's because of your scholarship students not because you offer a good education.

There will be fewer, but if you're just going to be a sales clerk or waiter, you don't really need a degree. Trade schools are still doing well.

Trade schools are experiencing a significant rise in enrollment across various trade programs, particularly in fields like mechanics, construction, and culinary arts, as more people are opting for vocational training due to high job demand. I think this is where America's greatly reduced middle class will come from.

[getagrip_already]

6. Actually much of our secondary educational system is top notch

It offers advanced ap courses and many students excel through its systems.

Sure, there are foreign students in universities, especially at the graduate levels, but those perfect sat's are the product of our very own educational system.

Is it universal? Hell no. Poorer systems suck. There is a definate scale correlated to community wealth.

But by and large even the elite schools could fill their roles with domestically educated butts.

But make no mistake, education is a business. Even though they consider themselves non-profit, there is a lot of wealth and power involved. Tuition fuels that. There is no reason for government to fuel it as it now stands.

Maybe if we could somehow force free tuition as a tax on universities for a portion of the student body it might mean something, but they would somehow make it worse overall.

[Farmer-Rick]

12. Yes, US colleges today are very good

I meant that after the middle class can no longer afford colleges and universities, their quality will become questionable.

When I went to college years ago, state and federal funds were the main financial support for most colleges and universities that the middle class frequently went to. Tuition was never considered the main funding source for higher education. I paid $300 a semester to go to Temple University in Philadelphia and I got scholarships to attend.

At that price, a good summer job would cover expenses. Not so much today.

If we would tax people like Trump and Musk we would have enough of a tax base to go back to being the main source of funding for higher education. But it is no longer a priority to educate our citizens in the US. It's more important to Americans to give the filthy-rich a tax break.

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Trade jobs are more difficult to offshore. Tradesmen actually need to *be there* to get the work done.

Last edited Mon Dec 9, 2024, 12:51 PM - Edit history (1)

Any degreed job that can be offshored is unlikely to repay the cost of getting that degree. People have figured that out, and have placed their career bets on the safer option.

[Farmer-Rick]

13. Good point

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4. I completely disagree

Fed and state funding levels are at an all time low. Federal student loans didn’t used to be based on a credit score. They were guaranteed by the fed so no credit score was needed. The federal loans are small and change depending on what year of school you’re in. As a freshman, you are only eligible for 5K max. The rest must be made of of grants and parents taking private loans. And YES, this amounts to emotional blackmail by the fed.

You obviously don’t know what you’re talking about.

[RandomNumbers]

7. Community college is far cheaper. Also military service provides some funding.

I got through a few degrees going a very non-traditional way. While I didn't start at community college, I used it to augment my course record in order to complete a bachelor's. What I found, amazing to me at the time, was the community college courses I took were at least as good, and sometimes better, as the in-state university that I was augmenting. (And said university had an excellent reputation). The CC happened to be closer to me than Uni and cheaper, so I tried a few courses there. I would counsel any kid with financial issues attending university, to strongly consider taking CC courses. Many CCs are set up that their course credits will automatically be accepted at 4 year colleges in that state or county.

Re military service:
Hey, I realize that we probably don't want our kids going into the military at this particular time. But it IS an option. And if a kid is smart enough (does well enough on the ASVAB, or whatever they use these days), and has kept their nose clean through their teens, they will have their choice of occupational specialty and can likely pick a REMF job that will set them up well for their post-military career. For example, intelligence / cyber-security analyst. (And hoo boy is that going to be a booming profession for the foreseeable future). REMF = low (but yes non-zero) probability of being sent to any high risk trouble spot. (for those not knowing, the RE = "rear echelon" and you can guess the rest. But the US military still needs them.)

[eppur_se_muova]

9. And just why, exactly, can't it be both ?

Rapidly climbing tuition costs and declining gov't support are opposite sides of the same coin. If either one didn't exist, the other wouldn't matter so much.

[MichMan]

14. I don't know why states aren't keeping up with higher education funding needs

[Irish_Dem]

5. People cannot afford PhD programs and professional schools.

Going into lower level degree fields.

If they can afford college at all.

[MichMan]

10. People are going to have to make smarter choices about where they are going and what they are taking

For too many years, we had a situation where young students were all expected to go to college. The trades were looked down upon and few parents wanted their children to become plumbers or electricians. Many weren't motivated and probably shouldn't have been in college in the first place, so after a year or two, dropped out.

Now with all the attention on costs and loans, hopefully people will make a lot smarter choices about what fields of study to go into. We encouraged people to follow their dreams on schools and majors, with no tempering of the ramifications of borrowing tens of thousands of dollars for a degree in fields that are generally low paying. Not to mention, those who struggle to find a decent paying job with their degrees, then decide they need to borrow even more $$$ to get a Masters degree in that same field.

Why it took this long for people to figure out kind of baffles me because with the plethora on information on the internet, it is easy to determine a) the cost of attending any specific institution, and b) how much potential earning power there is in any field. With that information, determining the ROI on taking out significant loans should be understandable by anyone bright enough to go to college in the first place. The desire by any student to attend any college in the country they want, and take the major of their choice, regardless of cost and ROI is not sustainable for the vast majority of people.

While the colleges deserve some amount of blame for the increases in costs, as long as students were willing to borrow more and more, and the lenders, including the government, were willing to keep giving it out, I'm not surprised that the colleges would keep raising tuitions etc. as long as people kept paying it. With enrollments dropping, I imagine they will start to go the other way.

I think you will see more students decide to commute from home to a nearby school, and choose majors that justify the costs.

[onecaliberal]

11. We can't afford it anymore

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15. God, a lot of you sound like republicans...

Higher education and health care should be a right not a privilege

[MichMan]

16. Agreed

If my kid wants to attend the University of Virginia as an out of state student majoring in Medieval Studies, it should be his right.

Taxpayers should pay for the $50,000 per year tuition. By the time he graduates, the total bill will be around $250, 000.

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17. Which only points out that our land grant universities

Are woefully underfunded. Thank you. At least Biden had the good sense to fund community colleges. Even though they only offer 2 year degrees, the credits are accepted by most schools and can defray the cost of a four year degree.

Edit: there is a hidden cost to this. If you take a private student loan, they will NOT allow you to defer payments after you earn an associates degree. The government used to allow deferment as long as you were enrolled full time. Just one more screwing by the fed to fuck over students that have to make payments while going to school full time and also holding down a job to feed and house themselves. It’s a terrible situation for these kids so fuck all you assholes that whine about how “we just can’t afford it”.