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Education

Spring Numbers Show 'Dramatic' Drop In College Enrollment (npr.org) 245

Undergraduate college enrollment fell again this spring, down nearly 5% from a year ago. That means 727,000 fewer students, according to new data from the National Student Clearinghouse. NPR reports: "That's really dramatic," says Doug Shapiro, who leads the clearinghouse's research center. Fall enrollment numbers had indicated things were bad, with a 3.6% undergraduate decline compared with a year earlier, but experts were waiting to see if those students who held off in the fall would enroll in the spring. That didn't appear to happen. "Despite all kinds of hopes and expectations that things would get better, they've only gotten worse in the spring," Shapiro says. "It's really the end of a truly frightening year for higher education. There will be no easy fixes or quick bounce backs."

Overall enrollment in undergraduate and graduate programs has been trending downward since around 2012, and that was true again this spring, which saw a 3.5% decline -- seven times worse than the drop from spring 2019 to spring 2020. The National Student Clearinghouse attributed that decline entirely to undergraduates across all sectors, including for-profit colleges. Community colleges, which often enroll more low-income students and students of color, remained hardest hit by far, making up more than 65% of the total undergraduate enrollment losses this spring. On average, U.S. community colleges saw an enrollment drop of 9.5%, which translates to 476,000 fewer students. [...] Based on her conversations with students, [Heidi Aldes, dean of enrollment management at Minneapolis College, a community college in Minnesota] attributes the enrollment decline to a number of factors, including being online, the "pandemic paralysis" community members felt when COVID-19 first hit, and the financial situations families found themselves in.

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Spring Numbers Show 'Dramatic' Drop In College Enrollment

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  • by OffTheLip ( 636691 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @05:06AM (#61476160)
    College has been too expensive for many years but paying full price for a lesser experience since Covid restrictions is insane.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 11, 2021 @05:16AM (#61476168)

      Not to mention the little issue of college being a hostile environment to any rational person these days. If you're not willing to play along with whatever the commies demand at the moment, they make it very unpleasant to be there.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        A Chinese immigrant in Northern Virginia nailed it: Schools today represent a major front in the American version of Mao's Cultural Revolution, where "trained Marxist" zealots indoctrinate people to denounce the past; thought police tell children to rat out each other, and their parents, for improper thoughts; street thugs, waving the flag of a communist group, tear down statues, burn books and destroy other vestiges of the past; school names are changed to sanitize thought; and more.

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward

          LOL I guess we should get rid of all schools right? Trumptards unite.

        • A Chinese immigrant in Northern Virginia nailed it: Schools today represent a major front in the American version of Mao's Cultural Revolution, where "trained Marxist" zealots indoctrinate people to denounce the past; thought police tell children to rat out each other, and their parents, for improper thoughts; street thugs, waving the flag of a communist group, tear down statues, burn books and destroy other vestiges of the past; school names are changed to sanitize thought; and more.

          I entirely disagree with the use of the "commie" epithet used by the poster you're responding to, and to my ears your post bears a hint of that as well. These problems go VERY far beyond traditional political doctrine, and fighting the war on that battlefield is a gift to those who would censor thought and perception.

          But I DO agree with Winston Churchill when he said “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” There are much better responses to the realization of prior gener

          • by Admiral Krunch ( 6177530 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @07:04AM (#61476340)

            For those interested, GP seems to be referring to this story: https://www.fox5dc.com/news/vi [fox5dc.com]... [fox5dc.com]. The fact that this is showing up largely on conservative news outlets shouldn't be allowed to obscure the validity of some of the points made.

            "I can't really just say what I mean, even though the other side can say whatever," she said. "To me, and to a lot of Chinese, it is heartbreaking that we escaped communism and now we experience communism here."

            Well she sounds entirely rational, and not at all hyperbolic...

          • by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @07:07AM (#61476346)

            >"But I DO agree with Winston Churchill when he said âoeThose that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.â There are much better responses to the realization of prior generations' mistakes than pulling down the statues; burning / bowdlerizing the history books; and banning certain types of speech and, ultimately, thought."

            Or trying to shame/blame people of certain races now for past injustices with wild theories or indoctrinate them with racist "anti-racist" programs. Teaching history, however, is more than fine, it is critical part of education. I just wish as much emphasis were placed on critical thinking, debate, and logic.

          • by RoccamOccam ( 953524 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @08:48AM (#61476684)

            Interesting comments from her:

            “I’ve been very alarmed by what’s going on in our schools. You are now teaching, training our children to be social justice warriors and to loathe our country and our history.

            “The Communist regime used the same critical theory to divide people. The only difference is they used class instead of race.”

            “We were taught to denounce our heritage, and Red Guards destroyed anything that is not communist ... statues, books, and anything else.

            “We were also encouraged to report on each other, just like the Student Equity Ambassador program and the bias reporting system.

            “This is indeed the American version of the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

            “The critical race theory has its roots in cultural Marxism. It should have no place in our school.”

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by quantaman ( 517394 )

            There are much better responses to the realization of prior generations' mistakes than pulling down the statues; burning / bowdlerizing the history books;

            If people of a certain political persuasion actually realized what those prior generations did then those Confederate statues would be subject to much worse treatment than getting pulled down.

            For those interested, GP seems to be referring to this story: https://www.fox5dc.com/news/vi [fox5dc.com].... The fact that this is showing up largely on conservative news outlets shouldn't be allowed to obscure the validity of some of the points made.

            Because if a member of one visible minority agrees then it can possibly be racist or discriminatory towards another visible minority.

            Oh, and there's a fairly blatant mistake in the linked article:

            By Michael Ruiz | Fox News

            LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. A Virginia mom who endured Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution before immigrating

      • by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @07:48AM (#61476434)

        Yea those Liberal College professors ask you to back up your claims with creditable evidence.

        Having been in college myself (don't spelling and grammar nazi, me because I do have dyslexia, I really try my best), I had found that the Professors are quite willing to listed to alternate view points even ones they don't believe in. However you better be ready to back up your statement with research and facts. I have seen overly Liberal Students and overly Conservative students getting shot down and embarrassed by professors (sometimes the same professor) because they both were just touting their emotions and using the political tropes without backing it up by evidence.

        What I expect really causes this impression is the fact that Students from a strictly Conservative house or very Liberal house hold may become more moderate after leaving college. They think it is the professors brainwashing them with Liberal Agenda, but it is more the aspect that After you leave your small town and Go to a university you find a diversity of people with different ideals, life styles and vices and your realize there are many different paths to success and failures.
        Those non-christian are really into the same stuff the christian are.
        The people who fall the in the LBGTQ are actually rather normal people who act much like everyone else most of the time.
        You meet people from other countries and societies who may not look like you, and offer a different view point to what is happening.
        They also may find people who are more religious than you where you can see how their faith guides them.
        They see people who had to work hard to get out of being in a poor conditions, often going to college in spite of their parents. ...
        This experience is what causes change. College doesn't doctorate people to be become liberals. It just expands their view of the world and usually creates a more moderate view of things.

        • by RemindMeLater ( 7146661 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @08:39AM (#61476650)
          Meh, pretending there's no bias in higher ed is just absurd. Most recent example, only 1% of Harvard college profs identify as conservative. [washingtonexaminer.com]. As to the student body, only 7% identify the same. If you think there isn't an ideological echo chamber there you're being deliberately naive.

          Liberal college professors are also allowed to get away with the most vile racism so long as it suits the prevailing narrative. Here's a good example of a professor at SUNY who wrote an essay detailing his fantasy of kicking homeless white children in the face for fun [washingtontimes.com]. Guess what... he's still employed.
        • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

          by RobinH ( 124750 )

          How can you watch what happened at Evergreen state college and not have an inkling of what everyone is upset about when they question what's happening on college campuses? You say that college professors ask you to back up your claims with credible evidence. They should. Did they, at Evergreen? The ones who did were shouted down as racist white supremacists, and were told by campus police that they were in danger because some students were out searching cars looking for them.

          If critical thinking were al

      • -1, Struck a nerve.

        One major objection to online course attendance has always been that you are not a part of the campus culture. Now this has gone from being a disadvantage to being an advantage.

    • More or less insane than excluding yourself from a job market which requires an arbitrary piece of paper?

      • More or less insane than excluding yourself from a job market which requires an arbitrary piece of paper?

        Well... but if they got a job they might have to go work for a woke company you see so it's not worth it. Though I'm not sure how that squares with "get woke go broke", because surely that would mean all the woke employers have gone broke and there are plenty of nice regressive ones to go and work for. It's like the woke are simultaneously utterly incapable, useless and failing hard at everything while a

        • Well... but if they got a job they might have to go work for a woke company you see so it's not worth it.

          Indeed. Suicide by starvation in a country which offers no social safety net is so much better than having to work for someone who someone else considers "woke". /sarcasm

      • by gmack ( 197796 )

        The degree requirement was often just an easy way to thin out the candidate pool when there were more people than jobs. Now there is a worker shortage and any place that still demands a degree for a job that just didn't need it will lose out.

        • Absolutely, but don't confuse worker shortage with lack of people who have degrees. Unless you have an inside track past the first few culling stages in HR they are much more likely to hire some dumbass who can only just spell their name over someone who is missing that all important piece of paper.

          Regardless of how you look at it, the odds are stacked against you.

          • by gmack ( 197796 )

            As employers here have to fight harder to get workers, many are dropping the degree requirement. At any rate, I'm happy to not work at places who require degrees, I make decent money without one.

      • More or less insane than excluding yourself from a job market which requires an arbitrary piece of paper?

        To be honest, I would rather work somewhere that allows 'equivalent experience' where appropriate than somewhere that does not. I'm not talking about the people designing aircraft, but maybe the people managing servers.

    • College has been too expensive for many years but paying full price for a lesser experience since Covid restrictions is insane.

      But because of the pandemic, a huge cross-section of students learned that online classes are in most cases a reasonable (in experience, if not in price) substitute for on-campus presence, MOOCs are about to take over in higher eduction.

    • Kind of funny how remote learning* is called the "lesser experience".

      *Remote learning, you know? One of the justifications for the internet and broadband as a utility and a human right argument.

      • by ranton ( 36917 )

        Kind of funny how remote learning* is called the "lesser experience". *Remote learning, you know? One of the justifications for the internet and broadband as a utility and a human right argument.

        Not sure how many people making those arguments ever said their goal was for internet and broadband to completely replace other forms of education. Everything I have ever seen treated it as a supplement of other traditional education methods.

    • Half of it turned out to be untrue, and much of the rest turned out to be useless.

      The STEM stuff was much better than the rest, although a lot of it went out of date fast. As for humanities, I got way more benefit from Project Gutenberg than I ever got from college.
  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @05:25AM (#61476180)

    That is a society with lots of people close to or over the poverty-line. If some larger crisis hits, many people cannot afford to get a decent education anymore.

    No, the diverse claims of "college is not worth it" to be expected here and in other places do not reflect the truth. They are just people trying to put a good spin on a bad thing.

    • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      The trouble is you hear these stories about people paying student loans for 20+ years; along side the statistics that show in terms of lifetime ROI there is no better investment than in a degree.

      Reality of course is that is to simplistic a look at it and both things are true. If you are actually intelligent, study the right discipline and to and even greater extent go to the right school and meet the right people you can enjoy a great deal of success, in the later case probably outsized success.

      On the other

      • A lot of those people at and below the poverty line are there because they are below the average intelligence curve too.

        And that's why we punish them.

        I mean either this is not true - in which case its projection to justify the fact that people live in extreme poverty in the richest country in the world (they are thick, its their own fault).

        Or it is true. In which case we deliberately punish those unable to look after themselves (or at least, do not look after them).

      • statistics that show in terms of lifetime ROI there is no better investment than in a degree.

        OK, let's put this all aside for a moment and talk about reality.

        Love. Honor. Ethics. Morals. Friendships. Relationships. Family.

        When it comes to real ROI across a lifetime, I can think of a hell of a lot of things that are far more valuable.

        The Disease of Greed has infected mankind for thousands of years. We'll likely die right here on this warmongering rock, forever addicted to it. Perhaps it's time we wise up and understand that in 20-40 years, you won't even be able to justify educating a human

    • by Computershack ( 1143409 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @06:11AM (#61476248)

      No, the diverse claims of "college is not worth it" to be expected here and in other places do not reflect the truth. They are just people trying to put a good spin on a bad thing.

      You've got more job security and earning ability if you go to trade school and learn how to be a builder, a plumber, a joiner, an electrician. School leavers are pushed towards IT and business by the bucket load and as a result there's far too many graduates in those fields for the jobs available. Meanwhile there's a serious shortage of building tradespeople.

      • by tomhath ( 637240 )
        Those trades are good if you know someone who can get you into the union. Otherwise you're back to flipping burgers.
        • Union might be better, but you can do an electrician apprenticeship with a non-union house and get your ticket in most states. You are still highly employable.

          But, there is huge variation in pay, pain, and career length for trades. Doing it from 18-40 might be fine, but 50-60 can be pretty rough on people if you have not moved up.

      • Then you work your way through a building boom and right into a bust where there's no work, and you'd better have another job skill or you're gonna be living in a rotting motorhome in the back of bumfuck poaching or starving.

        This is a true story, not my story though.

    • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      University enrolment is up during the pandemic in Canada, France and the UK (those are the three I looked at), and worldwide, continuing long-term trends. The US seems to be an outlier.

      Hopefully it's just the mystique the US has enjoyed since the end of WWII dissipating and international students deciding to go to school elsewhere, but I suspect instead that you're right and it's a domestic problem.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 11, 2021 @05:53AM (#61476204)

    State schools have not seen massive price increases and the cost is not insane. For online my school is the same price and it should be because we already have our buildings paid for and we do not pay property tax. Any savings from being closed has gone into zoom etc. We do not have 1/3 of our budget for advertising like private schools...

    One small source of cost increase has been top-heavy admin bloat which is a combination of PC positions nutty liberals want and BS oversight and a high pay business mindset from the corporatists. If anywhere needs less management it is the universities (not that we don't have problems, but management does almost nothing.)

    MOST cost increases that people do see with state schools is largely a long time push by Republicans to privatize all education resulting in lower and lower funding resulting in students paying more. Then add the corrupt student loan system... High School was NOT free until it became necessary and a wiser generation decided to fund it... Life is more complex today and that trend continues.

    Professors in the public system mostly are screwed over more than k-12 teachers. We take pay cuts almost yearly (for my 2 decades) and every 8 years or so the union fights with the state to get us a pay raise. This makes up for inflation as we're told but when you do the math you see it falls short! note: they never win back the 8 years of lost income. We also get a bunch of BS paperwork to make sure we never even think of going on TV or doing something controversial; you can thank Nixon for starting the war against us.

    Today's students: Pathetic! Foreign students are unchanged. Future looks dim if you can't get the good students to stay in the USA.

    I have to fail more and more students every year as they get worse. This is for courses where I've done the same thing and the only major variable are the students. They come in knowing nothing, they attempt to google and outsource their homework (I used to catch them hiring Indians now more subscribe to "tutoring" services!) So they lack the background and habits to succeed; people also curve and inflate. They think they know something when they do not because the system and their parents have bent over backwards to accommodate. Stopping 25% in and saying "I'm done, now praise me" happens. I never witnessed this in Gen X or Boomers; neither of those is known for hard work. I won't completely let staff off the hook as we've migrated to lazy powerpoint readers and premade multiple guess coursework -- both have lost their drive... It's like the classic (pre-internet) cartoon of a classroom full of tape recorders in place of students and the teacher replaced with a tape player.

    I'm not an addicting by design app or an on-demand streaming service or constantly in their pocket like their IQ draining anxiety phones. Everybody; including you curious reader, is being fought over for your time by more companies than ever in history armed with more psychology than educators could hope for. Other culturally toxic behaviors are at play as well. I won't even go into the failure of parenting... Or how zero-tolerance birthed the authoritarian intolerance from the right and the left (the left being more trouble on campus.) This isn't just a static perspective in a changing society that can come with age; it's different, this is real with a fair amount of studies to cover details which lead to bad conclusions... and of course people don't like unpleasantness at all so I've lost most of them paragraphs ago..

    • by ThumpBzztZoom ( 6976422 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @08:16AM (#61476544)

      State schools have not seen massive price increases and the cost is not insane.

      This is completely false. State schools have increased at a higher rate than private schools.

      In the period 1985-2019, private 4 year colleges have gone from an average tuition of $9,228 to $44,662, and increase of 384%. This is in current dollars, adjusted for inflation.
      In the period 1985-2019, public 4 year colleges have gone from an average tuition of $3,859 to $20,598, an increase of 434%. This is also in current dollars

      Median household salary in 1985 was $52,012 in current dollars, making private colleges cost 18% of income, and public colleges 7.4%.
      Median household salary in 2019 is $68,703, making private colleges cost 65% of income, and public colleges 30%.

      Those are median household salaries, before taxes, not what the average single person is bringing home in their 20's and 30's. If two people in a household go to college, then a public college would be 60% of income, and private schools 130%.

      Sources:
      https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/... [ed.gov]
      https://stats.areppim.com/stat... [areppim.com]
      Google
      mathematics

      • You wrote "average tuition", but you're pulling statistics from your first link which include "total tuition, fees, room and board rates" for the $20,598 figure.

        Actual current public in-state average tuition & fees is reported as $9,687 at U.S. News here [usnews.com].

    • We do not have 1/3 of our budget for advertising like private schools...

      If today's towering tuitions represent larger numbers of students vying for a limited number of spaces, then why do colleges need to advertise at all? That's money that could be going into labs and improving faculty salaries. Or do high tuitions just mean cartelization, like medical prices?

    • by dcollins ( 135727 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @11:14AM (#61477302) Homepage

      As a fellow faculty member, I agree with 90% of this, particularly on the bloat from increased administration numbers and salaries. At the moment my institution is cutting faculty lines and simultaneously hiring newly-made Dean positions. It's quite pernicious -- since outsiders aren't aware of the distinct cultural split in colleges, teachers are having more and more responsibility and benefits taken away from them, and simultaneously get blamed for the deteriorating conditions.

      There's a pretty good book written a few years ago on this trend: Benjamin Ginsberg, The Fall of the Faculty [amazon.com].

  • by Camembert ( 2891457 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @06:08AM (#61476236)
    It is really sad. In contrast, I currently live in Hong Kong and pre-Covid regularly went to mainland China for my job. Well, yes, you can point to issues with the regime but they do realise the importance of good schools for ling term economic benefit and thus they have lots of good quality education. Maybe too stern, but quality education for many committed students without monster loans. It is not perfect, there are still many rural areas, but you notice the level of civilisation in several large cities. China is building a society with more and more highly educated people, that will translate in economic benefit vs countries where higher education becomes too expensive.
    • by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @06:57AM (#61476322)
      Oh the U.S. recognizes the importance of a good education. Our problem is we keep trying to make college more accessible by providing easy loans to help pay for it. That's a demand-side solution. When you subsidize demand, you get more demand, Which leads to higher prices. Supply goes up, but only because it's chasing demand (i.e. as a result of the higher prices).

      What we should be doing is supply-side solutions. Provide loans and assistance to people wishing to create a new college or university. Build more state universities to compete with private universities. That will increase supply, dropping prices, allowing more kids to afford college without needing a loan. Demand goes up, but only because it's chasing supply (i.e. as a result of the lower prices).
      • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        The problem we have is we can't decide if these universities are schools or research institutions. The mass education model does not fit with the traditional research institution model.

        Look at China - their schools are schools - their research institutes are research institutes and paid for by doctor doom granting them US tax dollars.

      • We also keep weakening it for the same reason. The number of students who graduate high school and move on to college is a metric by which school systems are judged. If you're a politician or bureaucrat being judged by the school system's success, not only do you have an incentive to fudge those numbers, you have the ability. Why should a State university offer remedial courses for incoming students if the high schools are doing their job? If a student would need to take high school level courses at col
      • At the very minimum federal student loans should be free of interest. The government gives out interest free loans to banks all the time.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Maybe the solution is to just make it free to everyone who meets the required educational standard. Lots of countries do that, same as school is free.

        It works well because the cost is more than covered by the extra tax skilled employees bring in, and the more general economic benefits of having a highly skilled workforce.

      • Build more state universities to compete with private universities. That will increase supply, dropping prices...

        It takes a bit more than erecting a building and putting the word "school" on the front to fix this.

        Sadly, we'll be struggling to find educators who are willing to put up with the bullshit. Just as we are today. (No, a 10% bump in pay is not going to entice them. Not to put up with your precious entitled fuckstains.)

        And that's before we deal with the problem of re-educating educators to ensure we're building schools instead of more political indoctrination camps.

    • by gmack ( 197796 )

      Not all education leads to an economic benefit. I have one friend who got her degree in English literature and after a decade of doing well in her schooling, is now left without any available jobs in her field, worse yet many jobs consider her overqualified and won't give her a job in fear that she will look for something better and quit.

      • A degree in English Literature qualifies you to either write (original work or criticisms of other's work) or teach (specifically, English Literature, or English in general). You may be able to sideline into technical writing (very important for teams of developers or engineers who can barely string together a sentence if it isn't code), but that requires some skills with understanding logic, business and/or production flows. I've even seen some English Lit majors go back and fill their gaps in either busin
        • by gmack ( 197796 )

          Right. There are shortages of editor positions, so that's out. There are a shortage of University positions so teaching there is out. I can't imagine her around high school students so that is out. The slightest tech issue gives her a panic attack so that is out.

          But they promised her a job and told her that there were jobs waiting for her when she graduated. They didn't look at her other competencies or see if that program was even right for her.

    • by tomhath ( 637240 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @07:51AM (#61476444)

      China selects top students when they're young and grooms them to go to university.

      In the US we provide extra funding for students who are less intelligent or can't behave in class so they won't be "left behind". The top students don't get the extra attention that would benefit society in the long run.

      • China selects top students when they're young and grooms them to go to university.

        In the US we provide extra funding for students who are less intelligent or can't behave in class so they won't be "left behind". The top students don't get the extra attention that would benefit society in the long run.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-Ur71ZnNVk

        If the US Military can legally and logically say No, then society should figure out a way to do the same and accommodate the 10% of society that represents an anchor in education.

    • Educating people makes them not believe the bullshit they peddle.
  • Now the schools will have to enroll more foreign students to keep up their cash flow. Also raise tuition because that's a given.
  • by DirkDaring ( 91233 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @07:13AM (#61476358)

    My daughter got waitlisted at VT and ultimately didn't get in with a 4.07 unweighted. 42,000 applications for under 7,000 slots.

    • Any school giving out a 4.07 GPA undermines the relevance of a student's GPA.

    • by Keick ( 252453 )

      I noticed this odd trend this year too (I'm a Blacksburg resident BTW). I know the Computer Science Dept. had well over 10x the number of applicants as open slots, and many examples of kids with above 4.0 not making it.

      1) I also noticed in the article that public schools, like VT, didn't drop over the years; Instead the private schools did.

      and

      2) You have to realize that both Apple and Google announced major campuses to be built an hour and a half south of VT in the Triangle Park area. I bet all the universi

    • "My daughter ... didn't get in with a 4.07 unweighted."

      How do you have an unweighted GPA over 4.0?

  • by sabbede ( 2678435 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @07:23AM (#61476374)
    If you want to know why enrollment is falling, shouldn't you ask people who didn't enroll? "Conversations with students", means conversations with people who did enroll, who aren't especially likely to know why people who aren't them aren't there. But, shoddy, pseudo-intellectual journalism is about what I expect from NPR. It's no surprise they thought asking the opinion of a college administrator was the same as doing research. Such a person is unlikely to consider "we're doing a bad job" as a possible explanation.
    • by tomhath ( 637240 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @07:53AM (#61476456)
      This is NPR. The article was written first, then a few people were called to get sound bites that support the narrative.
    • "Conversations with students", means conversations with people who did enroll

      You're making assumptions about which students they were having a conversation with. I don't see TFS say "conversation which students who did enrol and did get accepted". Just the word "students".

      • You're making assumptions about which students they were having a conversation with. I don't see TFS say "conversation which students who did enrol and did get accepted". Just the word "students".

        If they're not enrolled, they aren't students.

        • by DRJlaw ( 946416 )

          If they're not enrolled, they aren't students.

          TFA: "A disproportionately high number of students of color withdrew or decided to delay their educational goals, she says, adding to equity gaps that already exist in the Minneapolis area."

          You have to be an enrolled student to withdraw, now don't you.

          "To help increase enrollment, her team is reaching out to the high school classes of 2020 and 2021, and they're contacting students who previously applied or previously enrolled and stopped attending."

          High school s

  • you will be happier (Score:5, Informative)

    by peterww ( 6558522 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @07:32AM (#61476390)

    As a plumber making 70k-100k after your one year of school and four year apprenticeship, than most jobs you'll get after four years of college and an entire mortgage of debt. Go into a trade, kids! The work is honest (and there's demand), you'll have less debt, and the only 'office politics' is about how much butt crack is acceptable at work.

  • So the Slashdot Editor's Style Guide requires that "FBI" be witten as "America's FBI", to avoid confusion with foreign FBIs.
    But only America has "colleges".
    Or do they just not give a shit.

    • So the Slashdot Editor's Style Guide requires that "FBI" be witten as "America's FBI", to avoid confusion with foreign FBIs. But only America has "colleges". Or do they just not give a shit.

      Don't worry, they'll fix it in the repost a few days from now.

  • get into renewable energy technology - as a *trained* technician.

  • The article is all about COVID, but clearly mentions decreased enrollment is an ongoing trend. No mention of causes for that trend, just discussion of why there was a bigger drop this time. Market saturation maybe. Meanwhile, at least in my area, general contractors either can't find skilled hands to do the work or can't afford the pay levels powered by the shortage.
  • by dcollins ( 135727 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @11:24AM (#61477342) Homepage

    A primary, long-term, and easily-predicted cause for reduced enrollments is simply a fall in population numbers for traditional college aged-students. Generally speaking, there's really not much colleges can do to correct for this. From a 2018 article at U.S. News [usnews.com]:

    Nathan Grawe, an economist at Carleton College in Minnesota, predicts that the college-going population will drop by 15 percent between 2025 and 2029 and continue to decline by another percentage point or two thereafter.

    "When the financial crisis hit in 2008, young people viewed that economic uncertainty as a cause for reducing fertility," says Grawe. "The number of kids born from 2008 to 2011 fell precipitously. Fast forward 18 years to 2026 and we see that there are fewer kids reaching college-going age."

    Birthrates failed to rebound with the economic recovery. The latest 2017 birthrate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posts new lows, marking almost a decade of reduced fertility.

  • by groobly ( 6155920 ) on Friday June 11, 2021 @11:51AM (#61477428)

    You can't get unemployment if you are enrolled in college.

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