30 ms·

US college enrollments are falling, except for graduate degrees

213 points by prostoalex 6y ago

lr4444lr 6y ago
I think Scott Galloway has already covered this authoritatively[0] [0] https://www.profgalloway.com/higher-ed-enough-already https://www.profgalloway.com/higher-ed-enough-already (and other articles)
MattGaiser 6y ago
Well, every degree is essentially an online degree now. Unless you are in a field where the degree itself is the most useful part of your education, you would defer. However, if you are unemployed right now, you want to avoid becoming long term unemployed. Therefore you go and get a graduate degree.
- denkmoon 6y ago
  Most of us just want certificates of employability. I got a BSc Biol and immediately became a developer. The education wasn't important, merely the certification that I can complete work to a reasonable standard according to a deadline. To that end, an online degree is fine (as long as it holds its value to employers/HR bots)
itqwertz 6y ago
It’s about time this industry gets “disrupted”.
awat 6y ago
It’s getting more and more difficult to justify undergrad 4-year degrees I don’t find it all that surprising that when you strip out the facilities and don’t drop tuition it’s causing this effect. It’s essentially a luxury service in many ways without the ability to provide the luxury.
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  Yup. The only reason colleges aren’t facing the wipeout of gyms or restaurants is that education is extremely counter-cyclical
- legerdemain 6y ago
  The effect of... unchanged enrollment in four-year programs? Did you read the linked article? Bachelor's degrees are not significantly changed, post-bac programs are up 20% or more, and master's programs are up as well. This suggests that students with money are seeking more schooling and more expensive schooling, not less. It's the poor people who get two-year degrees who are dropping out.
  - unishark 6y ago
    There is typically more of a counter-cyclic effect expected from recession, however. At the school where I work, enrollment this semester set a new record. Apparently that came at the expense of some other school(s). But I agree with your point generally, this probably has nothing to do with a backlash against college itself, and instead seems to be something more specific to "college-adjacent" degree programs.
acjohnson55 6y ago
I can't help but wonder if the pandemic will serve as a irreversible shock to a status quo that can't have been sustainable. As much as college was a life-redefining experience for me, I also think it's incredibly wasteful and indulgent to send most 18 year olds to college. I had no idea what I wanted out of the experience, other than the experience itself. I think a better future would be focused, shorter-term educational programs, taken flexibly through one's early career years. There simply have to be better ways to unbundle the positive aspects of the college experience to make them more responsive to people's individual journeys to their serious careers.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  The problem is that employers would need to value those programs and see them as an effective signal that graduates are of high quality. We have a lot of those short type of programs in my city in Canada, but employers generally seem to treat them as where you end up if you couldn't get a real degree. There is no signal and thus it is often hard to use it to get a job.
- ruph123 6y ago
  Maybe going off on a tangent but as a German I never understood why in the US people have to study for some very basic jobs. Jobs like nurse, pharmacist, physical therapist, etc. are 3 year apprenticeships in Germany. You apply directly at a company that is educating you on the job and you go to “work school” in alternating fashion. On the other side you need some kind of education for almost any job here. Car mechanic, etc. So it is not as flexible. I just always cringe when I hear someone is going to university to study for a job. Many jobs just require more practical experience than knowledge. In the US the choices are extrem: either go to some university or do nothing at all and try your luck.
  - rayhendricks 6y ago
    We do have that here too, you can apply to be an electrician (IBEW I think) and other trades and be paid on the job to learn. Unfortunately high paying jobs like IT or pharmacy you have to pay first.
dleslie 6y ago
I'm not sure if this is a bad thing. There are far too many degree programs with dismal graduate employment rates in their field of study. It pains me to think of the many who are shouldering student loan debt for degrees that are barely employable.
caterama 6y ago
I'm sure the reasons for this trend are incredibly complex, but I suspect that undergraduate degrees are increasingly failing to accurately signal competence, pushing those wishing to distinguish themselves to pursue graduate studies. So many factors are leading to increased number of undergraduate degrees... not limited to degree mills, grade inflation, standardized testing, and availability of virtually everything in undergrad curriculum available for "reference" online. This simultaneously increases the number of undergraduate degrees while decreasing the average quality. Institutions that rely on the formerly strong "has a degree" signal are finding that the signal is weakening. Undergraduates now failing to signal are somewhat forced to pursue more education. I see the same thing happening with masters degrees. Universities seem to increasingly offer combined BS and MS programs. I don't believe strong MS students are formed by tacking on just an extra year to a BS program. Finally, another observation on STEM fields: due to the funding situation and glut of PhD's it appears to be incredibly difficult to build a solid STEM career without a PhD. Undergrads in certain STEM areas try to leave university only to find out that they actually need more credentials to meaningfully work in the field they just spent 4 years studying for.
- awat 6y ago
  Your point about PhDs is spot on. I’m increasingly seeing job postings with PhD asks for software and ent architecture roles that don’t seem to articulate the need for the PhD. Anecdotally it seems PhDs are also getting dragged into the credential race.
  - klipt 6y ago
    Maybe that will at least encourage some US universities to offer shorter PhDs like in Europe, where one year masters degree followed by two years PhD for a total of three years postgraduate isn't uncommon.
    - llamaz 6y ago
      2 year PhDs? That sounds like a Master of Philosophy. Maybe in Europe PhDs are easier because you require the extra step of habilitation.
gogopuppygogo 6y ago
Good. Hope it’s permanent. Lambda is pioneering an ISA that only gets repaid if you find work in your field. Let the schools fail that graduate burger flippers and retail sales clerks with $50k in debt. Nothing wrong with those jobs if you need work but you shouldn’t have a system setup to saddle young people with $50k in debt to do that kind of work.
- legerdemain 6y ago
  Lambda was repeatedly in the news about reselling ISAs contra their marketing claims.[1][2] They also engage in puffery misrepresenting mixed-to-bad student outcomes.[3] I know Austen Allred can only fall up into more money, but my read on Lambda by this point is that it is a predatory institution. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/12/21135134/lambda-school-students-edly-isa-debt-swapping-partnership-shares-investors https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/12/21135134/lambda-school-st... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22313474 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22313474 [3] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/lambda-schools-job-placement-rate-is-lower-than-claimed.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/lambda-schools-job-p...
  - throwawaygh 6y ago
    For profit Ed? Predatory?! No! Who could have ever guessed?!
  - imtringued 6y ago
    The only conflict of interest I see here is that lambda school could increase their student body within a single year by admitting worse students to sell the ISAs and then close up shop to run away with the money. The biggest victims would be the investors. Although it's possible it sounds very unlikely. You'd expect this from a Bitcoin exchange.
- sJ646U9k6c6gME9 6y ago
  The idea of Lambda is great, but their execution has been shit. First off, the ISAs are securitized and resold. Lambda has zero incentive to do anything above and beyond pushing students through some percentage of the program. Second, Lambda’s level of instruction in the software tracks is abysmal. I’ve witnessed someone in my household go through Lambda. Day after day she struggled to stay on top of a constantly shifting and poorly organized curriculum. It was taught by an incredibly inconsistent and constantly rotating cast of instructors. The only thing Lambda did provide with some consistency is structure & discipline. There are certainly people who won’t study anything on their own outside of an externally imposed framework that provides a daily cadence of learning as well as regular milestones. In this sense Lambda is a calendar priced like a mid-size family sedan. Third, Lambda’s career guidance and job placement assistance - both of which are advertised as part of the package - are simply laughable. It consists mainly of asking newly hired alumni to post their job offers in a highly visible Slack channel. This is meant to encourage participants to look for jobs “because surely you can do it if those other people can”. Otherwise Lambda doesn’t do anything to help one polish their resume or find jobs through networking. Last but not least, the ISA’s monthly payment is calculated based on gross pay before taxes are netted out. When viewed through this lens, the payment is a lot steeper than originally advertised. Buyer beware.
marcell 6y ago
I'm always surprised by the negative comments about US colleges. Sure, they are expensive, and many students pursue useless degrees, but is it that big of a deal? Most people really enjoy going to college for the social experience. It's the first away from home experience for most young adults. I doubt that Lambda Schools or Devry will offer anywhere close to the social experience that a typical US college offers, even if they give better economic results. It would be a sad outcome if college saw a huge decline and wasn't an institution available for future students.
- seibelj 6y ago
  Rather than send child to college, I let him party in Asia for a year then he gets a Porsche when he lands back in the states. And I still come way out ahead! A far more useful social experience for a lower cost IMO.
  - erik_seaberg 6y ago
    I'm reminded of https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/college-level-mathematics https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/college-level-mathematics which contemplated adjunct professor pay …
- scarface74 6y ago
  Do you think that people should get in tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt for the “social experience”?
- benrbray 6y ago
  College campuses are the closest many people get to living in a proper city center (in the spirit of Europe or Japan), as opposed to the suburbs we all flee too later in life. At face value, you're right--but shouldn't we focus on building places people (young and old) can feel a sense of community beyond just college?
- cm2012 6y ago
  Being able to waste money on a fun social experience is an enormous privilege for the upper middle class. For the other 85% of Americans, getting a job with an investment that doesn't put you into debt is super important.
throwawaysea 6y ago
Good. While college is great for the social experience, there is little taught in the actual classes that cannot be learned through alternative means. Modern academia in the US is not only a bloated financial drain on society propped up by government subsidy, but it has also abandoned its core mission. Today’s college campuses are utterly illiberal monocultures, hostile towards free speech, free thought, and free inquiry. The democratization and decentralization of higher education cannot come soon enough, and I will welcome the death of the modern American university. I also hope K12 schools are disrupted soon after, as they are quickly following the same path with ever-increasing per-student expenses and no results to show for it. Moreover, with large teacher unions like the NEA adopting political stances and bringing ideological bias into their classes, they are replicating the same monocultures that have corrupted higher education slowly over the last few decades. The mission to teach students how to learn is going away, and in its place is curriculums on what to think. This is not what society needs.
- SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
  > there is little taught in the actual classes that cannot be learned through alternative means. You'd be ok with a do it yourself engineer, doctor, or accountant? You'd hire a lawyer who is self taught? I see you moving onto the usual punching bags of schools being hostile to free thought, but I'd say even your initial assumption is suspect.
  - quantumwannabe 6y ago
    If the engineer passed their PE exam, the doctor passed their boards, the accountant passed their CPA exams, and the lawyer passed the bar, I'd have no qualms about hiring any of them.
baskire 6y ago
I suspect lots of incoming freshmen are taking a gap year program. All the party schools with questionable degree value must also be hurting
thordenmark 6y ago
I hate to say this as most of my income is from teaching at a University, but this pandemic has shown us that you can get a quality education remotely. Also, most of college can be learned free online or in books these days. The only real value anymore are the friends you make who will one day be people who will help you get work.
- nickff 6y ago
  If people really wanted to learn, they could have been auditing courses. The obvious reality is that most students don't 'learn' much, and it doesn't matter. You needn't fear, because your university (like all the others) is in the business of providing a scarce resource (degrees). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education#:~:text=The%20Case%20Against%20Education%3A%20Why%20the%20Education%20System,in%20labor%20economics.%20Caplan%20argues%20that%20the%20prima https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education#:...
  - alextheparrot 6y ago
    I’m a bit confused by this - are you asking people who have an otherwise full course load to additionally audit courses or asking people out of school to continue education by auditing courses? Maybe I’m a bit of an outlier, but I still watch lecture series on YouTube long after graduating college and didn’t really have time to audit courses alongside my other courses in college.
    - nickff 6y ago
      I'm saying they could audit courses instead of 'taking' them if learning was the objective. Of course, 19-year-olds would never audit courses instead of taking them, because they understand that the degree is valuable, and the knowledge is not.
      - xboxnolifes 6y ago
        I've looked into auditing courses for free a few times at my local and graduated college, but I could never find any decent information for the process accept for full-time students (which is straight forward). And for the alternative of paying to audit the course, what is the point? It's the same course, may as well get the credits for it. It's the same as not auditing.
legerdemain 6y ago
Notably, the enrollment in bachelor's degree programs is flat. It is enrollment in two-year programs that has declined. That includes associate's programs in "practical," "hands-on" things like car repair and dental hygiene.
plazmatic 6y ago
Just the way republicans want it. Torpedo education. Keep the people dumb and they'll keep voting for demagogues. So sad that more people don't realize it.
sorwin 6y ago
The most obvious and direct reason for this is corona - what's the point of attending college if you don't get the full experience? I imagine despite your political affiliation, you want your kids to actually experience college for all it is and not just attend a bunch of self-help courses where you're responsible for teaching your self.
OliverJones 6y ago
The epidemic has obscured the biggest problem faced by the higher education industry: it's far too expensive. For the last couple of decades the industry has been in a debt-fueled frenzy of higher executive pay and shinier facilities. The debt has been incurred not by the service providers but by their customers. People graduate with good preparation to be a schoolteacher, health-care worker, librarian, social worker. That's great. They graduate with many tens of thousands of dollars of debt. That cripples them and messes up their lives. The so-called reform of the bankruptcy system in 2005 made it hard for graduates to declare bankruptcy. That shifted the risk from the lenders to the graduates. There was a time when student-loan officers would call university executives and say "Jack here wants to borrow $70,000 to pay your tuition so he can be a schoolteacher. Are you serious? We both know that's far too much debt for the pay he expects. We'll loan him $30K, and you better come up with the rest in grants or lower tuition." Those conversations kept a lid on education prices. But that doesn't happen any more. Education lenders are dangerous predators and students are their lawful prey. No wonder would-be students are refusing to play the game.
- non-entity 6y ago
  I looked at going back to school for about a year and and no matter how I spun the numbers I wouldn't be able to afford it. I dont have the time, space or likely the coherency to explain it all in a single HN comment, but the way the costs were structured and the financial aid system struck me as quite blunty, incredibly stupid.
- MrPowers 6y ago
  Both private institutions and the government are student loan lenders in the US. The government also guarantees a lot of private loans. It's good to clarify which lenders you're referring to when you say "Education lenders are dangerous predators". Do you think that the Federal government is enabling private lenders by guaranteeing their loans?
  - vonmoltke 6y ago
    > The government also guarantees a lot of private loans. No, they don't. A rider to the ACA removed government subsidies of private loans. The federal government is now solely an issuer (though I believe their portfolio still includes some loans that were originally private but later bought out by the government).
torgian 6y ago
They mention International students in the article. I'm not surprised at all that those numbers have dropped, but it probably didn't gain much attention until this year. Every student, or friend of mine, that I've talked to in China, Korea and Taiwan have told me they aren't applying to US universities for any number of reasons: 1) Too expensive 2) Crime / Danger ( debatable here, but the school shootings in the past few years hasn't helped ) 3) Racism Out of the three, fear of racism was the least mentioned. The biggest reason was cost. Crime fear of major crime was also mentioned in most conversations I've had. In the past I've always tried to downplay the danger / gun violence, but nowadays I don't even bother. Unless they want to go to MIT or Harvard, I really don't think there's much value in the 4-year degree in the US when you consider the cost ( and international students almost always pay more unless they get scholarships ).
- madboston 6y ago
  Work visa after school is also messed up for international students. They are expected to spend full tuitions and it doesn't get easier to get a job which is willing to sponsor visa and then go through a literal lottery.
- deeeeplearning 6y ago
  >2) Crime / Danger ( debatable here, but the school shootings in the past few years hasn't helped How is this debatable? The US is likely more dangerous than any comparable European country. Not just shootings but crime across the board.
Medicalidiot 6y ago
Bachelor's degrees only went down slightly, which isn't too surprising. What's worrying to me is that associates and certificates have dropped significantly. Both are primarily for individuals who are in lower socioeconomic status categories, which is more emblematic that there is a problem than anything else.
leftyted 6y ago
It's interesting to me that most people in this thread view colleges as jobs programs. In other words, many of us seem to view universities as machines that take in undergraduates at one socioeconomic level and graduate them at a higher socioeconomic level. If this is how we come to view "higher education," we should be careful because that's not the ideal that gave birth to the university in the form that we recognize it. And so it's not clear to me whether universities as we recognize them will continue to exist if we continue to view them as a jobs programs.
- x87678r 6y ago
  > that's not the ideal that gave birth to the university in the form that we recognize it True but originally it was just a small subset of people that went to university.
  - debacle 6y ago
    Starkly, incredibly small.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >It's interesting to me that most people in this thread view colleges as jobs programs What else would it be for the vast majority of people? You're investing thousands of dollars (either directly, or through opportunity cost) and huge chunk of time. If you can't make back that investment, then it just isn't worth for most people. The number of people that could make a living from pure research is always going to be miniscule. The number of people that could justify the expense (or opportunity cost) to just learn something for pleasure, is miniscule. > that's not the ideal that gave birth to the university in the form that we recognize it Right. Because originally universities were for the ruling and religious class that could justify the expense of education for its own sake. In modern world, many more people could make that calculation too, but lots of people could not justify the expense ... especially if you put this in these kinds of stark terms. >And so it's not clear to me whether universities as we recognize them will continue to exist if we continue to view them as a jobs programs. They could not. And that's a good thing. Humanities are a mess just for the reason that they take tuition and time from students and leave them hanging out to dray, after they graduate with no direct job prospects (i.e. a way to make a living).
LockAndLol 6y ago
Maybe it will be time for the world to massively move towards online education. Khan academy and other MOOCs are already doing a fine job. If universities finally move towards online certificates that can be recognized like or more than degrees, we might finally be able to drop the costs for education and enable more people worldwide to get a good education. A skill tree map like in Path of Exile for education would be a major step forward, but small steps first...
SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
Aren't we all treating this like some sort of emerging trend when it seems directly in response to COVID? Is the assumption also that masks are going to become common after this is over because we saw a mask wearing trend this year? Time will tell if this is a real problem or just a blip, but I think it may be too soon to raise the alarm of a socioeconomic shift during a pandemic.
- benmller313 6y ago
  It wouldn't surprise me if mask wearing did become pretty common place after this. I think some people view it as such a minor inconvenience that it would be worth it to wear during flu season.
  - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
    While I'd like that as well (I haven't had a cold since January), there's so much pressure against it in the middle of the pandemic I can't help but think won't last when the pandemic ends.
  - dehrmann 6y ago
    I halfway see people in the US using it to show their political preference.
  - dehrmann 6y ago
    If it's sporadic for someone who thinks they might be sick, I can understand, but I'm already worried about unintended consequences of so many people giving their immune systems a vacation, and the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that a Covid mutation that bypasses masks takes hold. We've never fought a disease like this on this scale, so these are pretty big open questions that I'm surprised I'm not hearing more about.
pgcj_poster 6y ago
I love how the bar graph uses the darkest color to represent white people.
theyCallMeSwift 6y ago
The growth specifically in Post-baccalaureate Certificate program enrollment while general Certificate programs drop is really surprising to me. I wonder if undergrads just have less faith in certificates or if graduates are more worried about CV gaps. Anyone have thoughts on why this might be happening?
francisofascii 6y ago
Part of the cause is the US birth rate fell after 9/11 and stayed lower for a couple of years, and so we are now 19 years later and seeing lower enrollment. The financial crisis had a much more dramatic effect on birth rates, so colleges will really be struggling 8 years down the line. https://www.statista.com/statistics/195943/birth-rate-in-the-united-states-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/195943/birth-rate-in-the...
SeanFerree 6y ago
Interesting article! I think college enrollments will continue to decline over the next several years. It's just become too expensive and there aren't enough high paying jobs to support it.
inamberclad 6y ago
It's probably because most colleges are waiving GRE requirements right now.
gwbas1c 6y ago
Two examples: 1: My 18-year-old nephew decided to attend classes online. No sense paying for room and board if he can't do anything fun while he's there. 2: My neighbor's son decided to delay his senior year. No sense paying full tuition if he can't be there in person.
anm89 6y ago
One interesting thing that might not be obvious on the surface is that this is a massively deflationary trend (in the sense that debt is money and educational loans increase the money supply) a time when we are already fighting deflation and have run out of traditional monetary tools to fight deflation (with interest rates already approaching 0) I actually think less people enrolling in college as it currently exists is a good thing but in the sense above it has the potential to have very damaging side effects (I'm not arguing we should continue the lending just because getting rid of it will cause some pain though)
hikerclimber 6y ago
good... we don't need more educated people... we need less educated people.

213 points by prostoalex 6y ago

I think Scott Galloway has already covered this authoritatively[0] [0] https://www.profgalloway.com/higher-ed-enough-already https://www.profgalloway.com/higher-ed-enough-already (and other articles)

MattGaiser 6y ago

Well, every degree is essentially an online degree now. Unless you are in a field where the degree itself is the most useful part of your education, you would defer. However, if you are unemployed right now, you want to avoid becoming long term unemployed. Therefore you go and get a graduate degree.

denkmoon 6y ago
Most of us just want certificates of employability. I got a BSc Biol and immediately became a developer. The education wasn't important, merely the certification that I can complete work to a reasonable standard according to a deadline. To that end, an online degree is fine (as long as it holds its value to employers/HR bots)

itqwertz 6y ago

It’s about time this industry gets “disrupted”.

awat 6y ago

It’s getting more and more difficult to justify undergrad 4-year degrees I don’t find it all that surprising that when you strip out the facilities and don’t drop tuition it’s causing this effect. It’s essentially a luxury service in many ways without the ability to provide the luxury.

throwawaygh 6y ago
Yup. The only reason colleges aren’t facing the wipeout of gyms or restaurants is that education is extremely counter-cyclical
legerdemain 6y ago
The effect of... unchanged enrollment in four-year programs? Did you read the linked article? Bachelor's degrees are not significantly changed, post-bac programs are up 20% or more, and master's programs are up as well. This suggests that students with money are seeking more schooling and more expensive schooling, not less. It's the poor people who get two-year degrees who are dropping out.
- unishark 6y ago
  There is typically more of a counter-cyclic effect expected from recession, however. At the school where I work, enrollment this semester set a new record. Apparently that came at the expense of some other school(s). But I agree with your point generally, this probably has nothing to do with a backlash against college itself, and instead seems to be something more specific to "college-adjacent" degree programs.

acjohnson55 6y ago

I can't help but wonder if the pandemic will serve as a irreversible shock to a status quo that can't have been sustainable. As much as college was a life-redefining experience for me, I also think it's incredibly wasteful and indulgent to send most 18 year olds to college. I had no idea what I wanted out of the experience, other than the experience itself. I think a better future would be focused, shorter-term educational programs, taken flexibly through one's early career years. There simply have to be better ways to unbundle the positive aspects of the college experience to make them more responsive to people's individual journeys to their serious careers.

MattGaiser 6y ago
The problem is that employers would need to value those programs and see them as an effective signal that graduates are of high quality. We have a lot of those short type of programs in my city in Canada, but employers generally seem to treat them as where you end up if you couldn't get a real degree. There is no signal and thus it is often hard to use it to get a job.
ruph123 6y ago
Maybe going off on a tangent but as a German I never understood why in the US people have to study for some very basic jobs. Jobs like nurse, pharmacist, physical therapist, etc. are 3 year apprenticeships in Germany. You apply directly at a company that is educating you on the job and you go to “work school” in alternating fashion. On the other side you need some kind of education for almost any job here. Car mechanic, etc. So it is not as flexible. I just always cringe when I hear someone is going to university to study for a job. Many jobs just require more practical experience than knowledge. In the US the choices are extrem: either go to some university or do nothing at all and try your luck.
- rayhendricks 6y ago
  We do have that here too, you can apply to be an electrician (IBEW I think) and other trades and be paid on the job to learn. Unfortunately high paying jobs like IT or pharmacy you have to pay first.

dleslie 6y ago

I'm not sure if this is a bad thing. There are far too many degree programs with dismal graduate employment rates in their field of study. It pains me to think of the many who are shouldering student loan debt for degrees that are barely employable.

caterama 6y ago

I'm sure the reasons for this trend are incredibly complex, but I suspect that undergraduate degrees are increasingly failing to accurately signal competence, pushing those wishing to distinguish themselves to pursue graduate studies. So many factors are leading to increased number of undergraduate degrees... not limited to degree mills, grade inflation, standardized testing, and availability of virtually everything in undergrad curriculum available for "reference" online. This simultaneously increases the number of undergraduate degrees while decreasing the average quality. Institutions that rely on the formerly strong "has a degree" signal are finding that the signal is weakening. Undergraduates now failing to signal are somewhat forced to pursue more education. I see the same thing happening with masters degrees. Universities seem to increasingly offer combined BS and MS programs. I don't believe strong MS students are formed by tacking on just an extra year to a BS program. Finally, another observation on STEM fields: due to the funding situation and glut of PhD's it appears to be incredibly difficult to build a solid STEM career without a PhD. Undergrads in certain STEM areas try to leave university only to find out that they actually need more credentials to meaningfully work in the field they just spent 4 years studying for.

awat 6y ago
Your point about PhDs is spot on. I’m increasingly seeing job postings with PhD asks for software and ent architecture roles that don’t seem to articulate the need for the PhD. Anecdotally it seems PhDs are also getting dragged into the credential race.
- klipt 6y ago
  Maybe that will at least encourage some US universities to offer shorter PhDs like in Europe, where one year masters degree followed by two years PhD for a total of three years postgraduate isn't uncommon.
  - llamaz 6y ago
    2 year PhDs? That sounds like a Master of Philosophy. Maybe in Europe PhDs are easier because you require the extra step of habilitation.

gogopuppygogo 6y ago

Good. Hope it’s permanent. Lambda is pioneering an ISA that only gets repaid if you find work in your field. Let the schools fail that graduate burger flippers and retail sales clerks with $50k in debt. Nothing wrong with those jobs if you need work but you shouldn’t have a system setup to saddle young people with $50k in debt to do that kind of work.

legerdemain 6y ago
Lambda was repeatedly in the news about reselling ISAs contra their marketing claims.[1][2] They also engage in puffery misrepresenting mixed-to-bad student outcomes.[3] I know Austen Allred can only fall up into more money, but my read on Lambda by this point is that it is a predatory institution. [1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/12/21135134/lambda-school-students-edly-isa-debt-swapping-partnership-shares-investors https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/12/21135134/lambda-school-st... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22313474 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22313474 [3] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/lambda-schools-job-placement-rate-is-lower-than-claimed.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/lambda-schools-job-p...
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  For profit Ed? Predatory?! No! Who could have ever guessed?!
- imtringued 6y ago
  The only conflict of interest I see here is that lambda school could increase their student body within a single year by admitting worse students to sell the ISAs and then close up shop to run away with the money. The biggest victims would be the investors. Although it's possible it sounds very unlikely. You'd expect this from a Bitcoin exchange.
sJ646U9k6c6gME9 6y ago
The idea of Lambda is great, but their execution has been shit. First off, the ISAs are securitized and resold. Lambda has zero incentive to do anything above and beyond pushing students through some percentage of the program. Second, Lambda’s level of instruction in the software tracks is abysmal. I’ve witnessed someone in my household go through Lambda. Day after day she struggled to stay on top of a constantly shifting and poorly organized curriculum. It was taught by an incredibly inconsistent and constantly rotating cast of instructors. The only thing Lambda did provide with some consistency is structure & discipline. There are certainly people who won’t study anything on their own outside of an externally imposed framework that provides a daily cadence of learning as well as regular milestones. In this sense Lambda is a calendar priced like a mid-size family sedan. Third, Lambda’s career guidance and job placement assistance - both of which are advertised as part of the package - are simply laughable. It consists mainly of asking newly hired alumni to post their job offers in a highly visible Slack channel. This is meant to encourage participants to look for jobs “because surely you can do it if those other people can”. Otherwise Lambda doesn’t do anything to help one polish their resume or find jobs through networking. Last but not least, the ISA’s monthly payment is calculated based on gross pay before taxes are netted out. When viewed through this lens, the payment is a lot steeper than originally advertised. Buyer beware.

marcell 6y ago

I'm always surprised by the negative comments about US colleges. Sure, they are expensive, and many students pursue useless degrees, but is it that big of a deal? Most people really enjoy going to college for the social experience. It's the first away from home experience for most young adults. I doubt that Lambda Schools or Devry will offer anywhere close to the social experience that a typical US college offers, even if they give better economic results. It would be a sad outcome if college saw a huge decline and wasn't an institution available for future students.

seibelj 6y ago
Rather than send child to college, I let him party in Asia for a year then he gets a Porsche when he lands back in the states. And I still come way out ahead! A far more useful social experience for a lower cost IMO.
- erik_seaberg 6y ago
  I'm reminded of https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/college-level-mathematics https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/college-level-mathematics which contemplated adjunct professor pay …
scarface74 6y ago
Do you think that people should get in tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt for the “social experience”?
benrbray 6y ago
College campuses are the closest many people get to living in a proper city center (in the spirit of Europe or Japan), as opposed to the suburbs we all flee too later in life. At face value, you're right--but shouldn't we focus on building places people (young and old) can feel a sense of community beyond just college?
cm2012 6y ago
Being able to waste money on a fun social experience is an enormous privilege for the upper middle class. For the other 85% of Americans, getting a job with an investment that doesn't put you into debt is super important.

throwawaysea 6y ago

Good. While college is great for the social experience, there is little taught in the actual classes that cannot be learned through alternative means. Modern academia in the US is not only a bloated financial drain on society propped up by government subsidy, but it has also abandoned its core mission. Today’s college campuses are utterly illiberal monocultures, hostile towards free speech, free thought, and free inquiry. The democratization and decentralization of higher education cannot come soon enough, and I will welcome the death of the modern American university. I also hope K12 schools are disrupted soon after, as they are quickly following the same path with ever-increasing per-student expenses and no results to show for it. Moreover, with large teacher unions like the NEA adopting political stances and bringing ideological bias into their classes, they are replicating the same monocultures that have corrupted higher education slowly over the last few decades. The mission to teach students how to learn is going away, and in its place is curriculums on what to think. This is not what society needs.

SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
> there is little taught in the actual classes that cannot be learned through alternative means. You'd be ok with a do it yourself engineer, doctor, or accountant? You'd hire a lawyer who is self taught? I see you moving onto the usual punching bags of schools being hostile to free thought, but I'd say even your initial assumption is suspect.
- quantumwannabe 6y ago
  If the engineer passed their PE exam, the doctor passed their boards, the accountant passed their CPA exams, and the lawyer passed the bar, I'd have no qualms about hiring any of them.

baskire 6y ago

I suspect lots of incoming freshmen are taking a gap year program. All the party schools with questionable degree value must also be hurting

thordenmark 6y ago

I hate to say this as most of my income is from teaching at a University, but this pandemic has shown us that you can get a quality education remotely. Also, most of college can be learned free online or in books these days. The only real value anymore are the friends you make who will one day be people who will help you get work.

nickff 6y ago
If people really wanted to learn, they could have been auditing courses. The obvious reality is that most students don't 'learn' much, and it doesn't matter. You needn't fear, because your university (like all the others) is in the business of providing a scarce resource (degrees). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education#:~:text=The%20Case%20Against%20Education%3A%20Why%20the%20Education%20System,in%20labor%20economics.%20Caplan%20argues%20that%20the%20prima https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education#:...
- alextheparrot 6y ago
  I’m a bit confused by this - are you asking people who have an otherwise full course load to additionally audit courses or asking people out of school to continue education by auditing courses? Maybe I’m a bit of an outlier, but I still watch lecture series on YouTube long after graduating college and didn’t really have time to audit courses alongside my other courses in college.
  - nickff 6y ago
    I'm saying they could audit courses instead of 'taking' them if learning was the objective. Of course, 19-year-olds would never audit courses instead of taking them, because they understand that the degree is valuable, and the knowledge is not.
    - xboxnolifes 6y ago
      I've looked into auditing courses for free a few times at my local and graduated college, but I could never find any decent information for the process accept for full-time students (which is straight forward). And for the alternative of paying to audit the course, what is the point? It's the same course, may as well get the credits for it. It's the same as not auditing.

legerdemain 6y ago

Notably, the enrollment in bachelor's degree programs is flat. It is enrollment in two-year programs that has declined. That includes associate's programs in "practical," "hands-on" things like car repair and dental hygiene.

plazmatic 6y ago

Just the way republicans want it. Torpedo education. Keep the people dumb and they'll keep voting for demagogues. So sad that more people don't realize it.

sorwin 6y ago

The most obvious and direct reason for this is corona - what's the point of attending college if you don't get the full experience? I imagine despite your political affiliation, you want your kids to actually experience college for all it is and not just attend a bunch of self-help courses where you're responsible for teaching your self.

OliverJones 6y ago

The epidemic has obscured the biggest problem faced by the higher education industry: it's far too expensive. For the last couple of decades the industry has been in a debt-fueled frenzy of higher executive pay and shinier facilities. The debt has been incurred not by the service providers but by their customers. People graduate with good preparation to be a schoolteacher, health-care worker, librarian, social worker. That's great. They graduate with many tens of thousands of dollars of debt. That cripples them and messes up their lives. The so-called reform of the bankruptcy system in 2005 made it hard for graduates to declare bankruptcy. That shifted the risk from the lenders to the graduates. There was a time when student-loan officers would call university executives and say "Jack here wants to borrow $70,000 to pay your tuition so he can be a schoolteacher. Are you serious? We both know that's far too much debt for the pay he expects. We'll loan him $30K, and you better come up with the rest in grants or lower tuition." Those conversations kept a lid on education prices. But that doesn't happen any more. Education lenders are dangerous predators and students are their lawful prey. No wonder would-be students are refusing to play the game.

non-entity 6y ago
I looked at going back to school for about a year and and no matter how I spun the numbers I wouldn't be able to afford it. I dont have the time, space or likely the coherency to explain it all in a single HN comment, but the way the costs were structured and the financial aid system struck me as quite blunty, incredibly stupid.
MrPowers 6y ago
Both private institutions and the government are student loan lenders in the US. The government also guarantees a lot of private loans. It's good to clarify which lenders you're referring to when you say "Education lenders are dangerous predators". Do you think that the Federal government is enabling private lenders by guaranteeing their loans?
- vonmoltke 6y ago
  > The government also guarantees a lot of private loans. No, they don't. A rider to the ACA removed government subsidies of private loans. The federal government is now solely an issuer (though I believe their portfolio still includes some loans that were originally private but later bought out by the government).

torgian 6y ago

They mention International students in the article. I'm not surprised at all that those numbers have dropped, but it probably didn't gain much attention until this year. Every student, or friend of mine, that I've talked to in China, Korea and Taiwan have told me they aren't applying to US universities for any number of reasons: 1) Too expensive 2) Crime / Danger ( debatable here, but the school shootings in the past few years hasn't helped ) 3) Racism Out of the three, fear of racism was the least mentioned. The biggest reason was cost. Crime fear of major crime was also mentioned in most conversations I've had. In the past I've always tried to downplay the danger / gun violence, but nowadays I don't even bother. Unless they want to go to MIT or Harvard, I really don't think there's much value in the 4-year degree in the US when you consider the cost ( and international students almost always pay more unless they get scholarships ).

madboston 6y ago
Work visa after school is also messed up for international students. They are expected to spend full tuitions and it doesn't get easier to get a job which is willing to sponsor visa and then go through a literal lottery.
deeeeplearning 6y ago
>2) Crime / Danger ( debatable here, but the school shootings in the past few years hasn't helped How is this debatable? The US is likely more dangerous than any comparable European country. Not just shootings but crime across the board.

Medicalidiot 6y ago

Bachelor's degrees only went down slightly, which isn't too surprising. What's worrying to me is that associates and certificates have dropped significantly. Both are primarily for individuals who are in lower socioeconomic status categories, which is more emblematic that there is a problem than anything else.

leftyted 6y ago

It's interesting to me that most people in this thread view colleges as jobs programs. In other words, many of us seem to view universities as machines that take in undergraduates at one socioeconomic level and graduate them at a higher socioeconomic level. If this is how we come to view "higher education," we should be careful because that's not the ideal that gave birth to the university in the form that we recognize it. And so it's not clear to me whether universities as we recognize them will continue to exist if we continue to view them as a jobs programs.

x87678r 6y ago
> that's not the ideal that gave birth to the university in the form that we recognize it True but originally it was just a small subset of people that went to university.
- debacle 6y ago
  Starkly, incredibly small.
macspoofing 6y ago
>It's interesting to me that most people in this thread view colleges as jobs programs What else would it be for the vast majority of people? You're investing thousands of dollars (either directly, or through opportunity cost) and huge chunk of time. If you can't make back that investment, then it just isn't worth for most people. The number of people that could make a living from pure research is always going to be miniscule. The number of people that could justify the expense (or opportunity cost) to just learn something for pleasure, is miniscule. > that's not the ideal that gave birth to the university in the form that we recognize it Right. Because originally universities were for the ruling and religious class that could justify the expense of education for its own sake. In modern world, many more people could make that calculation too, but lots of people could not justify the expense ... especially if you put this in these kinds of stark terms. >And so it's not clear to me whether universities as we recognize them will continue to exist if we continue to view them as a jobs programs. They could not. And that's a good thing. Humanities are a mess just for the reason that they take tuition and time from students and leave them hanging out to dray, after they graduate with no direct job prospects (i.e. a way to make a living).

LockAndLol 6y ago

Maybe it will be time for the world to massively move towards online education. Khan academy and other MOOCs are already doing a fine job. If universities finally move towards online certificates that can be recognized like or more than degrees, we might finally be able to drop the costs for education and enable more people worldwide to get a good education. A skill tree map like in Path of Exile for education would be a major step forward, but small steps first...

SketchySeaBeast 6y ago

Aren't we all treating this like some sort of emerging trend when it seems directly in response to COVID? Is the assumption also that masks are going to become common after this is over because we saw a mask wearing trend this year? Time will tell if this is a real problem or just a blip, but I think it may be too soon to raise the alarm of a socioeconomic shift during a pandemic.

benmller313 6y ago
It wouldn't surprise me if mask wearing did become pretty common place after this. I think some people view it as such a minor inconvenience that it would be worth it to wear during flu season.
- SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
  While I'd like that as well (I haven't had a cold since January), there's so much pressure against it in the middle of the pandemic I can't help but think won't last when the pandemic ends.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  I halfway see people in the US using it to show their political preference.
- dehrmann 6y ago
  If it's sporadic for someone who thinks they might be sick, I can understand, but I'm already worried about unintended consequences of so many people giving their immune systems a vacation, and the longer this goes on, the more likely it is that a Covid mutation that bypasses masks takes hold. We've never fought a disease like this on this scale, so these are pretty big open questions that I'm surprised I'm not hearing more about.

pgcj_poster 6y ago

I love how the bar graph uses the darkest color to represent white people.

theyCallMeSwift 6y ago

The growth specifically in Post-baccalaureate Certificate program enrollment while general Certificate programs drop is really surprising to me. I wonder if undergrads just have less faith in certificates or if graduates are more worried about CV gaps. Anyone have thoughts on why this might be happening?

francisofascii 6y ago

Part of the cause is the US birth rate fell after 9/11 and stayed lower for a couple of years, and so we are now 19 years later and seeing lower enrollment. The financial crisis had a much more dramatic effect on birth rates, so colleges will really be struggling 8 years down the line. https://www.statista.com/statistics/195943/birth-rate-in-the-united-states-since-1990/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/195943/birth-rate-in-the...

SeanFerree 6y ago

Interesting article! I think college enrollments will continue to decline over the next several years. It's just become too expensive and there aren't enough high paying jobs to support it.

inamberclad 6y ago

It's probably because most colleges are waiving GRE requirements right now.

gwbas1c 6y ago

Two examples: 1: My 18-year-old nephew decided to attend classes online. No sense paying for room and board if he can't do anything fun while he's there. 2: My neighbor's son decided to delay his senior year. No sense paying full tuition if he can't be there in person.

anm89 6y ago

One interesting thing that might not be obvious on the surface is that this is a massively deflationary trend (in the sense that debt is money and educational loans increase the money supply) a time when we are already fighting deflation and have run out of traditional monetary tools to fight deflation (with interest rates already approaching 0) I actually think less people enrolling in college as it currently exists is a good thing but in the sense above it has the potential to have very damaging side effects (I'm not arguing we should continue the lending just because getting rid of it will cause some pain though)

hikerclimber 6y ago

good... we don't need more educated people... we need less educated people.