As the nation hurtles toward a presidential election that will showcase a deep cultural divide between those who attained a college degree and those who did not, there are emerging signs that high schoolers are souring on the value of an undergraduate degree.
National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, which tracks higher education enrollment, released the latest numbers last week for the fall 2024 semester. What the data show is a slow but massive shift in the public’s approach to postsecondary education that may destroy the reputational and institutional power of traditional four-year college attendance.
It is no secret that enrollment in higher education has been in decline. The largest annual decrease in recent years came in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the college decisions of a large swath of high school seniors, leading to a nearly 10% drop in enrollment. In the years since then, enrollment has bounced back somewhat but is still below where it was in 2019. Given the new data for fall 2024, it is fair to wonder if it will ever reach that point again.
According to the new data, freshman enrollment at four-year colleges and universities declined by 5% this year. The numbers are preliminary and will not be finalized until January, but the decline is real and tangible and can be attributed to a variety of factors, some of which can be easily addressed while others would be much more difficult to reverse.
Regardless of the external factors that may have contributed to or accelerated the decline, the numbers make one thing clear: the public thinks the value of a college education has fallen. Its promised return on investment has increasingly failed to materialize, creating conditions to burst the higher education bubble that was built by student debt and government meddling.
Most of the increase in higher education cost is due to the top heavy administration at most colleges and universities. With the institutions trying to insulated the students from all outside contact they are depriving them of the opportunities to enjoy a well rounded transition from teenagers to adults. Maybe they should all be forced to eliminate 1/2 of the non-teaching positions, and then do the same thing every other year until the ration of teaching positions to administration is about 4 (or more) teaching to every administration position.