In 2021, Shippensburg University won the NCAA Division II Field Hockey championship, completing an undefeated season with a 3-0 victory over archrival West Chester. The “Ship” Raiders also won it all in 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2013, which I know because I saw it written in big letters on a banner festooning the fieldhouse on Ship’s campus in south-central Pennsylvania when I visited last month.
Ship was in fine form. Young men and women wearing logoed Champion sweatshirts bustled between buildings. There was a line at the coffee shop in the student union. It was the kind of bright-blue autumn day that you would see on a brochure.
There was no way to tell, from the outside, that Ship was a shrinking institution. Or that the problem is about to get a lot worse — not just here, but at colleges and universities nationwide.
In four years, the number of students graduating from high schools across the country will begin a sudden and precipitous decline, due to a rolling demographic aftershock […]
The situation is certainly complex; however, as a society we have created artificially high barriers to occupational entrance by requiring Bachelors degrees in areas where they are not necessary. In addition, following COVID with the mass imposition of virtual platforms the costs for providing college education (if all you want is the education) have dropped significantly, without tuition dropping concomitantly. These mismatches will need to be addressed if we are calm the turbulence in both the job market and in college education.