- 18 Jul 2023 07:06
#15280177
Fewer numbers of young Americans are going to college and deciding to get a 4-year university degree.
This is dramatic, unprecedented, and to many people very concerning.
Some might see this as yet another indicator of America's decline.
I've highlighted and paraphrased just a few select parts from the article.
The proportion of high school graduates in Tennessee who are going directly to college is plummeting. Last year, it was less than 53 percent. That's down 11 percentage points since 2017.
There is a continuing slide in the number of Americans willing to invest the money and the time it takes to go to college. It's a trend that some experts worry is likely to diminish people’s quality of life and the country’s economic competitiveness.
"With the exception of wartime, the United States has never been through a period of declining educational attainment like this," said Michael Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University. There has been a significant and steady drop nationwide in the proportion of high school graduates enrolling in college in the fall after they finish high school - from a high of 70 percent in 2016 to 63 percent in 2020, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Many observers have suggested three principal explanations for the falloff: the Covid-19 pandemic, a dip in the number of Americans under 18 and a strong labor market sucking young people straight into the workforce. But while the pandemic made things worse, the enrollment downturn took hold well before it started; there were already two and a half million fewer students at colleges and universities by the time that Covid set in than there were in 2012. Another million and a half have disappeared since then.
Demographics alone cannot explain the scale of this drop. And statistics belie the claim that recent high school graduates are getting jobs instead of going to college; workforce participation for 16- to 24-year-olds is actually lower than it was before Covid hit, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.
Myriad focus groups and public opinion surveys point to other reasons for the dramatic downward trend. These include widespread and fast-growing skepticism about the value of a degree, impatience with the time it takes to get one and costs that have finally exceeded many people’s ability or willingness to pay.
The proportion of high school graduates going to college in Indiana dropped to 53 percent in 2020, down by 12 percentage points from five years earlier -- a pace Commissioner for Higher Education Chris Lowery has called "alarming". In West Virginia, 46 percent of 2021 high school graduates went on to college the following fall, 10 percent below that state's high of 56 percent in 2010. Fifty-four percent of 2021 high school grads in Michigan went straight to college, down 11 percent from 2016. In Arizona, 46 percent of high school graduates in 2020 went to college the following fall, a drop from more than 55 percent in 2017. In Alabama, recent high school graduates' college-going in 2020 fell to 54 percent, down 11 percent since 2014; and in Idaho, to 39 percent, down 11 percent since 2017.
Americans are increasingly dubious about the need to go to college. Fewer than one in three adults now say a degree is worth the cost, according to a survey by the Strada Education Network.
There is growing dissatisfaction among recent university and college graduates with the value of the education they received. More than four in 10 bachelor's (4-year degree) holders under 45 did not agree that the benefits of their educations exceeded the costs, according to a survey by the Federal Reserve. Only a quarter of recent grads in another survey, by the educational publishing and technology company Cengage, said that, if they could do it again, they would take the same educational path. That adds up to a lot of bad reviews passed down to younger siblings and classmates, who consider family and friends the most trustworthy sources about whether and where to go to college, according to a survey by Vox Global.
"If you don’t believe your degree was worth the cost and you tell everybody that, that has a huge impact."
Meanwhile, months of discussion about whether the Biden administration will forgive all or some student loan debt has had an unintended consequence: It has reminded prospective learners just how much people before them had to borrow to pay for college. So has the fact that many of their parents are still paying back their student loans.
Between 2015 and 2019, Americans' faith in higher education dropped more than their confidence in any other institution measured by the Gallup polling organization -- an extraordinary erosion of trust, considering that list includes the presidency, Congress, big business and the criminal justice system.
Yet since the start of the pandemic, the proportion of 14- to 18-year-olds who think education is necessary beyond high school has dropped from 60 percent to 45 percent. More than half of teenagers who are planning on some further education say they are open to something other than a four-year degree.
It's not only recent high school graduates who are turning their backs on higher education. The number of students over 24 who are going for the first time or returning to college has also steadily declined, by a total of 12 percent in the five years between the spring of 2017 and the spring of 2022.
Community colleges have seen the most dramatic declines in enrollment.
The growing disparities in college-going could widen the fissures already polarizing American society. "Places like Los Angeles or D.C. or Chicago, they're going to continue to draw a lot of college graduates."
How higher education lost its shine Americans are rejecting college in record numbers, but the reasons may not be what you think, Jon Marcus, August 10, 2022
https://hechingerreport.org/how-higher- ... its-shine/
You can read the comments in the very bottom of the page in the link.
This is dramatic, unprecedented, and to many people very concerning.
Some might see this as yet another indicator of America's decline.
I've highlighted and paraphrased just a few select parts from the article.
The proportion of high school graduates in Tennessee who are going directly to college is plummeting. Last year, it was less than 53 percent. That's down 11 percentage points since 2017.
There is a continuing slide in the number of Americans willing to invest the money and the time it takes to go to college. It's a trend that some experts worry is likely to diminish people’s quality of life and the country’s economic competitiveness.
"With the exception of wartime, the United States has never been through a period of declining educational attainment like this," said Michael Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University. There has been a significant and steady drop nationwide in the proportion of high school graduates enrolling in college in the fall after they finish high school - from a high of 70 percent in 2016 to 63 percent in 2020, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Many observers have suggested three principal explanations for the falloff: the Covid-19 pandemic, a dip in the number of Americans under 18 and a strong labor market sucking young people straight into the workforce. But while the pandemic made things worse, the enrollment downturn took hold well before it started; there were already two and a half million fewer students at colleges and universities by the time that Covid set in than there were in 2012. Another million and a half have disappeared since then.
Demographics alone cannot explain the scale of this drop. And statistics belie the claim that recent high school graduates are getting jobs instead of going to college; workforce participation for 16- to 24-year-olds is actually lower than it was before Covid hit, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.
Myriad focus groups and public opinion surveys point to other reasons for the dramatic downward trend. These include widespread and fast-growing skepticism about the value of a degree, impatience with the time it takes to get one and costs that have finally exceeded many people’s ability or willingness to pay.
The proportion of high school graduates going to college in Indiana dropped to 53 percent in 2020, down by 12 percentage points from five years earlier -- a pace Commissioner for Higher Education Chris Lowery has called "alarming". In West Virginia, 46 percent of 2021 high school graduates went on to college the following fall, 10 percent below that state's high of 56 percent in 2010. Fifty-four percent of 2021 high school grads in Michigan went straight to college, down 11 percent from 2016. In Arizona, 46 percent of high school graduates in 2020 went to college the following fall, a drop from more than 55 percent in 2017. In Alabama, recent high school graduates' college-going in 2020 fell to 54 percent, down 11 percent since 2014; and in Idaho, to 39 percent, down 11 percent since 2017.
Americans are increasingly dubious about the need to go to college. Fewer than one in three adults now say a degree is worth the cost, according to a survey by the Strada Education Network.
There is growing dissatisfaction among recent university and college graduates with the value of the education they received. More than four in 10 bachelor's (4-year degree) holders under 45 did not agree that the benefits of their educations exceeded the costs, according to a survey by the Federal Reserve. Only a quarter of recent grads in another survey, by the educational publishing and technology company Cengage, said that, if they could do it again, they would take the same educational path. That adds up to a lot of bad reviews passed down to younger siblings and classmates, who consider family and friends the most trustworthy sources about whether and where to go to college, according to a survey by Vox Global.
"If you don’t believe your degree was worth the cost and you tell everybody that, that has a huge impact."
Meanwhile, months of discussion about whether the Biden administration will forgive all or some student loan debt has had an unintended consequence: It has reminded prospective learners just how much people before them had to borrow to pay for college. So has the fact that many of their parents are still paying back their student loans.
Between 2015 and 2019, Americans' faith in higher education dropped more than their confidence in any other institution measured by the Gallup polling organization -- an extraordinary erosion of trust, considering that list includes the presidency, Congress, big business and the criminal justice system.
Yet since the start of the pandemic, the proportion of 14- to 18-year-olds who think education is necessary beyond high school has dropped from 60 percent to 45 percent. More than half of teenagers who are planning on some further education say they are open to something other than a four-year degree.
It's not only recent high school graduates who are turning their backs on higher education. The number of students over 24 who are going for the first time or returning to college has also steadily declined, by a total of 12 percent in the five years between the spring of 2017 and the spring of 2022.
Community colleges have seen the most dramatic declines in enrollment.
The growing disparities in college-going could widen the fissures already polarizing American society. "Places like Los Angeles or D.C. or Chicago, they're going to continue to draw a lot of college graduates."
How higher education lost its shine Americans are rejecting college in record numbers, but the reasons may not be what you think, Jon Marcus, August 10, 2022
https://hechingerreport.org/how-higher- ... its-shine/
You can read the comments in the very bottom of the page in the link.
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