A decade or so ago, Americans were feeling pretty positive about higher education. Public-opinion polls in the early 2010s all told the same story. In one survey, 86 percent of college graduates said that college had been a good investment; in another, 74 percent of young adults said a college education was “very important”; in a third, 60 percent of Americans said that colleges and universities were having a positive impact on the country. Ninety-six percent of parents who identified as Democrats said they expected their kids to attend college — only to be outdone by Republican parents, 99 percent of whom said they expected their kids to go to college.
In the fall of 2009, 70 percent of that year’s crop of high school graduates did in fact go straight to college. That was the highest percentage ever, and the college going rate stayed near that elevated level for the next few years. The motivation of these students was largely financial. The 2008 recession devastated many of the industries that for […]
We have something of an internal struggle in the US between viewing higher education as an overall societal positive especially looking at the value of a liberal arts education vs. looking at college as the preparation for a job. We have many individuals who are working in occupations which have nothing to do with their educational areas of interest; however, they are still having to pay off the student loans. At the same time there is a lack of skilled tradespeople to complete needed work. Youth looking at the debit loads of their family and friends have made a rational choice to not attend college. We also have a national cognitive distortion that college education equals intelligence. This is a dangerous, and negative trend which needs to be confronted aggressively, as many without degrees are educated in areas that most know nothing about.
Personallly, I believe much of this is related to prohibitive costs. College used to be a lot less expensive. The second reason is related to people needing to work. Needing the income as rent, food, fuel, etc continue to rise at very steep rates.
Including COL rates provides a more wholistic assessment of what is occurring.