The other day my wife attended a function for lawyers at which she sat next to a recent graduate of Notre Dame’s law school. He said he was employed essentially as a research clerk, and said 1/2 of his law school class was either un- or under-employed.
Shortly thereafter I saw in the news that tuition at my kids’ state school was going to go up 9% next year (tho my kids are locked in at their rates).
Really makes me wonder about the future of higher education. Are young people going to continue to apply to attend 4-year undergraduate schools if - as appears to be the case right now - they can expect to graduate with highly uncertain job prospects to counterbalance the debt they incur?
This article from last spring suggests there has actually been an increase in the number of applications to many of the top public and private schools. I wonder what this year will show.
Are colleges/grad schools immune to economic factors? Will we see schools compete in terms of price? Will any less competitive schools close? Will we see an increase in alternatives to traditional college educations?
In CA, applications are up at the UC schools - but at the same time more kids seem to be trying to start at the cheaper Cal State schools and later transfer to a UC for their final diploma.
The general belief is that the economy will turn around in a few years, so going to school is essentially seen as an excuse to go into a holding pattern until the job market gets better.
Of course, if the economy doesn’t come back, it’ll all look like a huge mistake. Loading up on lots of debt for no payoff.
Our enrollment is up 15% this semester, and has been for the past three semesters. The enrollment in the entire state community college system is up about 19%, with enrollment being at one community college being up by about 37%.
Due to a 54% decrease in state funding for higher education, we did raise our tuition by 9%, the maximum allowed by state law. Some of the four-year institutions raised theirs by significantly larger amounts.
A lot of our increase in enrollment is in the developmental classes. We theorize that these are students who in better economies would be working at relatively low-paying jobs after high school due to their lack of readiness (and interest in) college, but that they can’t find those jobs so they’re going to school but can’t read or write at college level (thus the need for the developmental classes).
Some of the increase is also due to nontraditional students changing careers. One of the courses I teach is a prerequisite for just getting onto our nursing program wait list, and every section of that course was full two weeks after registration opened for this semester, about 1.5 months before the spring semester started.
I know that the Tier I schools went deeper into their waiting lists this last year than is usual–this has been a trend over the last few years for some non-economic reasons (mostly kids are applying, and getting into, more colleges, and so turning more down), but the economy also had an impact: a kid who got into Harvard but also a really good state school honors program or was offered money to go to a tier II school was more likely to turn down Harvard last year than in the years before.
There are 10-15 kids at my (fairly small) public high school who transferred in this year from private school–most years we get 3-4. One assumes that tuition was an issue in at least some of those transfers.
There was a story on Marketplace last night about how applications to small private schools are up a lot because the state has trashed the state schools to the level that graduating in four years is going to be difficult, even assuming you get in.
And while it is tough to graduate these days with a diploma, not having one is even worse.
And delaying entry until things get better is a factor also. I rode out the economic problems of the late '70s in grad school.
As a general rule, it’s better to spend an economic downturn in college than in the job market. When the economy turns around (and it ALWAYS turns around eventually. Economic cycles and all that.) you will be in a better position to get a job. Not going to college bacause you think there won’t be any jobs in 4 years is foolish and shortsighted.
I teach at the graduate level. Our enrollment always seems to go up when the job market is down. I assume folks would rather spend their time getting an advanced degree than sitting at home watching game shows, thus better positioning themselves for the few jobs that are available.
I have a 4 year state school college grad (anthropology) who is home, twiddling her thumbs, trying to decide what to do. She wants to go on to get a masters and her dad said he’ll cough up for two more years at another state school. After that, I don’t know what she’ll do. Be a professional student, I guess, and work at Applebee’s…If she took a course of study and had a fighting chance of getting a job in the health field, say, I’d feel a lot better. We’d rather she went on to get a higher degree while waiting for the economy to turn around, but an Ivy League college is out of the question, so I hope the SUNY school degree will be worth something… Her best friend is now a hairdresser, is manager of the shop, lives with a boyfriend who is an auto mechanic. They are renting to own a house, have a big screen TV, two cats and two dogs, own two cars and a truck, and seem to be rolling in discretionary income.
Is there a reason to believe that this is merely a temporary downturn in employment, and that within some foreseeable timeframe there will be many job opportunities for college grads - especially LAS majors or other non-business/technical degrees?
ISTM that there have been tremendous forces far predating this recent turndown aimed at reducing staff in just about every level of every industry - and reducing pay and benefits for those that remain.
It just seems so odd to me, that college costs keep going up so steeply and regularly, with so many people running up considerable debt to end up with few job options. Really seems there should be an increase in the market for lower cost and more practical alternatives to the traditional 4-year college degree.
My wife (lawyer) has been unable to find a job, and brought up the topic of returning to school to make herself more marketable. I told her I did not know what she could study that would guarantee that she would be more marketable, and that if she wanted to obtain additional schooling, I recommended that she study something that she personally wanted to study, and would appreciate having learned whether or not it got her a job down the road.
Eh - I doubt many people will give up on college entirely. They might go for cheaper schools - but college is the ticket to the middle class. You can get into it in other ways, though skilled trades - but it’s a hard slog. For most people, college just isn’t “optional” any more.