Summary
College enrollment among 18-year-old freshmen fell 5% this fall, with declines most severe at public and private non-profit four-year colleges.
Experts attribute the drop to factors including declining birth rates, high tuition costs, FAFSA delays, and uncertainty over student loan relief after Supreme Court rulings against forgiveness plans.
Economic pressures, such as the need to work, also deter students.
Despite declining enrollment, applications have risen, particularly among low- and middle-income students, underscoring interest in higher education. Experts urge addressing affordability and accessibility to reverse this trend.
Don’t feel even an ounce of sympathy for these assholes. As someone who works adjacent to academia, we’ve been talking about the “enrollment cliff” for a few years now. The solution universities have come to is that they should cut admissions requirements to make sure anyone with money can enter their institution, and then do as much creative accounting as necessary to cover up students’ failing grades. They’d rather become degree mills than look at the real problem; their tuition costs.
As a post-doc, I was selected for a leadership academy that put me in close contact with upper administration at a public university. We would meet weekly and have a project to work on over the course of the two month experience.
During our discussions, I was always curious about how they used data in their decision making. So one day I asked how are our students doing in the long run? How do we assess the effectiveness of the education we are providing them?
They did not know, they do not collect such data. What was most shocking to me, though was the degree of resistance that they put up to even talking about the idea of creating such feedback systems.
Shortly thereafter I left academia forever with a lingering sense of disgust at the willful ignorance of any institutinalized academic.
My university calls and asks for money on a weekly basis and has the audacity to employ current students to do it. I feel terrible for the kids. They have a script asking these questions. What do I do now? What advice do I have for them?
I used to be normal and tell them to study and go to office hours. Now I tell them the University does not care about them or their success/failure. They only care about being paid for 4 years. I always end with telling them : if you or your loved ones are going into any debt at all for this…leave.
I know that I must sound like some disillusioned alumni that was screwed by the system and an outlier. I’m not. I am doing objectively better than most of the people I graduated with. But if I am one of the few success stories of my many peers, and my University knows absolutely nothing about my strategies after undergrad, then how can they hope to advise students to do the same?
I just see the scam for what it is, and hope I can be a catalyst for at least a few kids to get out before financial ruin. You can get an amazing education from community college/studying at home/khan academy/trade schools. It is all in how much you apply yourself and has nothing to do with how much you paid.
It is difficult to express the depths of my disappointment of any human assembly above about 2000 people.
Let us common shitheads figure out how to properly home/pod school kids or something. It only takes 2-3 hours average to educate a small passel to the point of independent learning.
I know my university at least gathered that data after I graduated. Kept getting emails about if I had gotten work in my field, salary, etc. I never answered and I have no idea if they would even make use of it but there was an attempt. This was 20 years ago.
I suspect it wasn’t actually the university contacting you, but instead it was the alumni association.
Alumni associations aren’t usually a direct unit of the university but sort of an auxiliary org. Alumni associations want the data to further their own interests but they are primarily interested in you as a source of donations. They are often at odds with central administration, a difficult relationship because the associations do gather funds but have an agenda that is often at odds with the administration.
Eh. I don’t really want my school knowing everything about me. I shouldn’t need to provide them my data and they shouldn’t ask for it.
Yes there should be accountability etc. but the deal was that I’d pay them for an education and that’s what I got. If Big Alma Mater wants to know whether I’m “successful” then too bad, that’s not part of the deal.
I think ya might have missed the point
Sorry we just passed the law. You can expect an Alma Mater SWAT team to show up and torture you for the information.
Jokes on the SWAT team. Every time I move my alumni association immediately finds me and sends me lovely brochures asking for money. They already have my data and probably yours.
They have time to google. Not magic, just time and mandate to use the resources at hand.