Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Universities Struggling

Over the past three years, more than 30 colleges and universities in the US have closed, and many more are in danger. This is caused by a slight decline in the number of 18-year-olds – the early 2000s were not a great time for births – a small decline in the number of international students, the excellent job market (which lures many high school grads directly into the work force), the high drop-out rate, and the general woes of higher education in America.

This Times article explores some of the things colleges are doing in their struggle to survive:
  1. merging;
  2. cutting programs;
  3. emphasizing career training (nursing, cybersecurity, etc.) over liberal arts;
  4. creating combined undergrad/grad programs like the 5-year BA/MBA;
  5. offering rebates to graduates who can't get jobs;
  6. getting into adult learning and corporate training;
  7. And even, would you believe, cutting tuition.
I have my doubts that any of this is going work without a major shift in how Americans think about education. I expect continued decline in enrollments and many more colleges to fail or be taken over.

Demographically colleges are going to get a brief boost from the small baby boom that took place in the bubble years of 2006-2008, but after the crash the birth rate crashed, too, so the years from 2026 on are going to get grim.

3 comments:

Shadow said...

Have the parents (and future parents) who payed Singer $50,000 -- $500,000 to get their children into college pay the college directly??? Remove the middleman. Make it legal. Just put a credit card/check checkbox at the bottom of the application with room for credit card number or bank routing and account numbers.

G. Verloren said...

Meanwhile, in Europe, higher education is often not only free, but world class...

But nah, let's not consider doing things the way they do. Instead, let's listen to Shadow and formalize naked corruption and nepotism!

Our for-profit educational system is deeply broken, so let's double down on the idea! Because as we all know, what what truly matters in an educational system is that schools look and act like corporations! Private profits are the goal, not a properly educated populace!

Shadow said...

"But nah, let's not consider doing things the way they do. Instead, let's listen to Shadow and formalize naked corruption and nepotism!"

Three cheers for formalizing the informal. Why be ashamed of it? Lori Loughlin is my hero. 😉👌 Lori forever.