[Puffer Fish]

Four million fewer teenagers enrolled at a college in 2022 than in 2012. For many, the price tag has simply grown too exorbitant to justify the cost. From 2010 to 2022, college tuition rose an average of 12% a year, while overall inflation only increased an average of 2.6% each year. Today it costs at least $104,108 on average to attend four years of public university -- and $223,360 for a private university.
At the same time, the salaries students can expect to earn after graduation haven't kept up with the cost of college. A 2019 report from the Pew Research Center found that earnings for young college-educated workers had remained mostly flat over the past 50 years. Four years after graduating, according to recent data from the Higher Education Authority, a third of students earn less than $40,000 -- lower than the average salary of $44,356 that workers with only a high-school diploma earn. Factor in the average student debt of $33,500 that college graduates owe after they leave school, and many graduates will spend years catching up with their degree-less counterparts. This student-debt-driven financial hole is leaving more young graduates with a lower net worth than previous generations.​

Some Gen Z Are Not Going to College Amid Rising Tuition (businessinsider.com), Charlotte Lytton, Sep 5, 2023
https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-n ... ach%20year.

US college enrolment trends were falling even before COVID-19 struck.
Of those US students opting out, nearly 50% said they failed to see an adequate return on the time and investment required for college study.

In 2022, 4 million fewer people in America enrolled at a college than ten years ago. The COVID-19 pandemic further accelerated the decline in US college enrolment, with a 10% decrease in sign-ups.

For those students who still believe in the value of college, completing their studies is not guaranteed -- one-third of students are dropping out. To make matters worse, many of these students still hold a substantial amount of debt, despite having no credentials to show for it. The best available data from the National Center for Education Statistics concluded that 38-39% of students who took out student loans between 2012-2017 did not finish college during that timeframe.

As of 2022, the average student loan debt-per-borrower is $37,113 and in a 2022 poll, 51% of US adults agreed that the cost of higher education "impacted their ability to pursue education after high school."​

US college enrolment is dropping, can this be reversed? Daniel Rosensweig, World Economic Forum, Jan 19, 2023
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/01/ ... d-davos23/

[late]

US college enrollment is dropping, can this be reversed? Daniel Rosensweig

Of course.

This is a small generation, so fewer kids going is not terribly surprising.

But we have made a number of bad mistakes. We don't support kids going to school enough.

That college debt cannot be discharged in bankruptcy is an economic sin. Republicans made life easier for businesses in financial trouble, and raked kids over the coals. That's crazy.

We ought be serious about education, from pre-K on up, and we just aren't.

[Tainari88]

Of course.

This is a small generation, so fewer kids going is not terribly surprising.

But we have made a number of bad mistakes. We don't support kids going to school enough.

That college debt cannot be discharged in bankruptcy is an economic sin. Republicans made life easier for businesses in financial trouble, and raked kids over the coals. That's crazy.

We ought be serious about education, from pre-K on up, and we just aren't.

Do not get into a mountain of debt that prohibits you from paying rent and being independent. My older son who is 25 and graduated from college with zero college debt told me that. If he had not had a basketball scholarship he would be in debt.

That is limiting severely the opportunities in life and finances of millions of young people. It is counterproductive. But free college educations is SOCIALISM. The boogey man. Hee hee.

[Rancid]

FUck college, let's bring back child labor.

[Tainari88]

FUck college, let's bring back child labor.

I am for this kid becoming child labor:

[Rancid]

I am for this kid becoming child labor:

Some kids are absolute pieces of shit. I wonder what her parents are like.

[Godstud]

People need to go into trades more than go to college. All that education isn't helping this new generations. It's not teaching them critical thinking.

[wat0n]

I am for this kid becoming child labor:

It seems it was fake. There's another video with the same teacher

But I agree with you, as the scenario almost surely happens IRL.

[ingliz]

It's not teaching them critical thinking.

So says the 'sports bar' owner, who finds it difficult to think and denies words change their meaning over time.

For example...

Sporting houses used to be brothels in the 1600s.

and

A sporting woman in mid-20c. American English was a euphemism for 'prostitute.'

[Godstud]

@ingliz You're no better than a monkey flinging poo.

I can understand why mentioning critical thinking would trigger you. relax. I am sure you're still a victim.

Maybe get on topic, you dim twat. The topic is colleges and less people attending.

[ingliz]

would trigger you.

I am not 'triggered'.

Taking the piss out of an ignoramus from Thailand is fun.

Unless you are very stupid, which I suspect you are, you would know that the primary role of a university is to teach you how to think, not what to think.

You learn to question your sources, identify arguments, analyse both sources and arguments (and their relevance); evaluate the arguments of others and create your own.

Education helps bring clarity and purpose to your thoughts.

[Godstud]

@ingliz I am still far smarter than some twat from a shithole Mediterranean rock.

Universities and colleges are less about critical thinking and more about indoctrination, now.

Why critical thinking is overlooked by schools and shunned by students
Ben Morse argues that for as long as universities fail to recognise achievements in critical thinking with UCAS points, the subject will continue to be ignored at secondary level
https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-net ... -education

[ingliz]

@Godstud

Secondary level education is not college.

[Godstud]

I use the term when talking about college or university. If I used it incorrectly, then my bad. Still, it starts there.

Colleges Aren’t Graduating Critical Thinkers


It starts earlier, too.
Critical Thinking Skills Not Emphasized By Most Middle School Teachers
https://www.forbes.com/sites/helenleebo ... bbddde2ee4

[Puffer Fish]

According to many young people, the herculean four-year undertaking is no longer worth the trouble.

The parents of today's college students often told them going to college would provide a path to job security, which would eventually blossom into a fruitful career. That comes with the generational benchmarks of home ownership, a vacation fund, and even the ability to provide for a family, and the next generation's education, too. That’s what the American Dream purported to offer, at least, until Gen Z came along and upended it.

The idea of college ensuring success has eroded, Phillip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland College Park tells Fortune. "To be sure, pursuing education and a career is still a safer bet for your future," he says, noting that job outcomes and salary baselines are significantly improved with each advanced degree. But those material benefits are "just not a guarantee anymore."

College--whether or not it’s "necessary" on principle--has become an exorbitant expense that about half of the country incurs--to the point where the cost isn’t worth it for some.

The article goes on to explain that employers these days are increasingly looking for specific skills rather than just a college degree.

Gen Z is souring on college degrees as a path to success, sociology professor says. They have a good reason: Skills-based hiring is the way of the future, Jane Thier, Fortune Magazine, 9/23/2023

[Potemkin]

According to many young people, the herculean four-year undertaking is no longer worth the trouble.

The parents of today's college students often told them going to college would provide a path to job security, which would eventually blossom into a fruitful career. That comes with the generational benchmarks of home ownership, a vacation fund, and even the ability to provide for a family, and the next generation's education, too. That’s what the American Dream purported to offer, at least, until Gen Z came along and upended it.

The idea of college ensuring success has eroded, Phillip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland College Park tells Fortune. "To be sure, pursuing education and a career is still a safer bet for your future," he says, noting that job outcomes and salary baselines are significantly improved with each advanced degree. But those material benefits are "just not a guarantee anymore."

College--whether or not it’s "necessary" on principle--has become an exorbitant expense that about half of the country incurs--to the point where the cost isn’t worth it for some.

The article goes on to explain that employers these days are increasingly looking for specific skills rather than just a college degree.

Gen Z is souring on college degrees as a path to success, sociology professor says. They have a good reason: Skills-based hiring is the way of the future, Jane Thier, Fortune Magazine, 9/23/2023

As far as the jobs market is concerned, if everyone has a college degree, then nobody has a college degree. A couple of generations ago, the rarity value of having a degree was its main value. I remember reading an opinion piece about thirty years ago in which some middle-class British woman complained bitterly and at great length that the Open University was “devaluing” her university degree by giving everybody the opportunity to obtain a degree. In one sense, she was right - the rarity value of having a degree was being eroded by the OU. But in another sense, she was simply revealing her bourgeois philistinism - to her, the only value of a degree was its rarity value, and its function as a marker of class privilege.