The looming college-enrollment death spiral

kamikazeturtles

https://archive.ph/KpOsf

ks2048

Right in the headline is a word choice I've notice lately that irks me, "democratization". "democratization" doesn't mean more people have access to it. In voting, "more access" means "more governing power" (in principle), but in other things, it does not. If you want to use "democratized" applied to higher-ed, it would mean more people are involved in the decision-making, leadership, or ownership.

apparent

The author has written a famous book on college admissions, but this piece doesn't really seem to add much to the discussion. I came away thinking that his publicist recommended he get his name out there more to help his brand or sell some more books.

ks2048

> The number of teenagers graduating from American high schools peaked last year. The article doesn't seem to mention foreigners - particularly Chinese. Are those numbers expected to grow or shrink?

brd529

Isn’t there a strong argument that we put too many students in debt with a partially completed or useless degree in a well meaning push for “college for all”? The triumph the author describes - an increase in colleges - came at the expense of a reduction in vocational schools and programs.

burningChrome

I honestly don't buy this for several reason. In the mid 90's, my affluent suburban high school was in panic mode, afraid that declining enrollment was an impending death spiral. My graduating class only had gasp 750+ students. Ten years after I graduated, entering the 2000's, enrollment had already surpassed 800 kids. The school had to build out an entire wing and completely remodel the athletic building to accomodate all the new students that were enrolling. Likewise, attending college in North Dakota saw the same thing in the late 90's. Sheer panic the entire North Dakota college system was about to enter an enrollment desert. They wondered how can the Universities recruit more out-state students. Again, by early to mid aughts? Enrollment was off the charts. They had to buy buildings in the downtown area and convert them to a new "downtown campus" for several emerging and expanding majors. The campus saw a constant upgrade of facilities and buildings. It was completely the opposite. The entire system saw a massive transformation that continues to this day: As of Fall 2025, the North Dakota University System (NDUS) reports a total headcount of 47,552 students, marking a 3.8% increase over 2024 and reaching its highest level since 2014. The University of North Dakota (UND) specifically achieved a record-breaking enrollment of 15,844 students in 2025, surpassing its previous 2012 record. Across the system, growth is driven by rising undergraduate numbers and an increase in high school students. Over the past five or so years, there's been a small fluctuation, but overall the system has been surging as of late and is on solid ground for the next decade or so. The North Dakota system is the very kind of system the article says is about to be greatly affected by the year 2040. That would require quite a drop off from where they currently are and the amount of growth they're having right now. Again, I don't buy this since many of the people who are from out-state, many of them will settle down in North Dakota cities, get married and start families there. The cost of living is super low and its a very tax friendly state compared to many of its neighbors like Minnesota. Fargo, where NDSU (and by proxy Moorehead University and Concordia College) is located is still one of the fastest growing cities in the state, growing steadily at about a 2% pace annually. Which means the supply side of the equation isn't likely to die out any time either.

seniorThrowaway

I think college's value proposition and entire model has been eroded. Major school's CS grads are finding jobs upon graduation at an 11% rate (I don't have the primary source on this, but it is published by a site I read that never fudges these kinds of things, going back many years). AI probably has a lot to do with that, but it's exposing something more fundamental. CS wasn't supposed to be a programming boot camp anyway, it is at its heart an academic degree much close to pure mathematics than programming. Maybe it should go back to that? Maybe college never should have been for everyone? That was the norm for the vast majority of the existence of higher education. Maybe we don't need gleaming campus' with huge facilities overhead costs? When storing knowledge required physical books it made sense to build learning facilities around large libraries, but that hasn't been the case for decades now. Should young people really be taking on life long non-dischargeable debt for a glorified high school diploma? I think the answer is no, they shouldn't, and that the entire college bubble needs to be popped.

ProllyInfamous

If you are choosing to still attend college, my advice would be to get an A.B.E.T-accredited degree, to fall back upon (I have a non-BE science degree from a prestigious US institution == essentially worthless). Being an engineer vs. being an engineer tech is a substantially life-quality difference. But only if you choose to attend (I would not re-attend).

semiquaver

It seems that the entire higher education space is in dire need of some creative destruction. College expenses have been subject to cost disease for years and a reckoning is long due. I’m not sure if demographic change will produce this reckoning but something has to.

colechristensen

University is too expensive, bloating administrative budgets and "prestige" architecture combined with professional sports teams have led everyone astray from the two goals: advancing the forefront of human knowledge and preparing young people with the education to be free in their world. Instead we're going to very expensive camp where most of the people flaunt laws for fun (there's no reason alcohol should be illegal for undergrads) and then grind to pass tests while not actually learning all that much OR becoming all that prepared for the world after university. Particularly with how poorly academics are paid, it would be pretty damn easy to build a better university. It's not at all surprising people are leaving, university degrees are becoming minimum quarter million dollar participation trophies.

jimbokun

> On the flip side, perhaps no field has collapsed more dramatically than computer and information sciences: From 2014 to 2024, entry-level openings grew about 6%, while the number of graduates soared by 110%. That seems more relevant to new CS grad unemployment than AI.

munificent

As long as people are allowed to vote in the US, we have an incentive to ensure they are all well educated. Surely a large part of this problem that the article doesn't mention is that college is too fucking expensive. And an obvious solution to that is to tax rich people and use that to fund universities so that students don't have to go so far in debt in order to become productive members of society. It's crazy how many problems today boil down to "a tiny fraction of elites are hoarding all the wealth" and yet we seem to assume the solution of "tax them and use that money to benefit others" is simply impossible.

danny_codes

IMO we should pay adults to go back to school. Make all public universities free and pay a living stipend. Give additional stipends for dependents. Easy win for everyone.

ecshafer

Universities got broken trying to make it for everyone, and also jacked up the price. Return to traditional degrees, get rid of the boutique majors and things that belong in job training centers.

rekabis

Unless the big universities “expand” by linking up with the regional colleges, giving them a branding cachet that will attract students, there is one group that will benefit enormously: Conservatives. They require an uneducated and ignorant electorate. It’s the only way they can hoodwink voters into voting against their own best interests.

ButlerianJihad

From my youth, I was infected with the desire to graduate college at all costs. I was adopted, and I was told that both of my birth-parents were college graduates (I later validated this as truth!) My adoptive parents were also both college graduates, though my mother chose against a career or employment in favor of motherhood, and active volunteering in church and civic spheres. My sister and I were both groomed to go to college. We attended the standard college prep high schools. The choices were laid before us. Mom told me definitely not to attend UC Berkeley (because of the hippies and anti-war protests.) So, I chose UCSD and my parents basically handled all the paperwork; I sat down to write an essay, and I was totally in. However, mental illness ruled my life and I dropped out of classes. An excuse by my therapist got me restarted but not for very long before the second dropout. I tried community college for a semester and earned one more good grade (in C programming). I started work, foolishly believing that would go better than college! My life fell apart around me and college remained unfinished for decades. Finally by 2017 I was stable enough to consider college again. Of course I should have understood that my career was not a thing, and at that point, college was the frivolous pipe-dream of an aging guy unable to really support himself. Nonetheless, I did the FAFSA, and Uncle Sam paid for the rest of my college bills. I again dropped out, for reasons of being less-than-stable, but I had managed to earn 3 CompTIA certifications and I also landed a very nice job, which I held for over 4 years. None of those would've been possible without the drive to finish college. Ultimately, the community college found a way to "graduate me" and award me a certificate of completion (instead of the Associate's in Applied Science which I was pursuing.) My "graduation ceremony" occurred in the US Postal Service station. Receiving that certificate was 100% a surprise, but a Pyrrhic victory. At this point, I achieved my "bucket list" of graduating college, but I have 0 career prospects, and the certificate means 0 to my former or prospective employers (the certifications also meant nothing to them!) So what did Uncle Sam really pay for? My personal satisfaction? Just to funnel more taxpayer money to the college system? I am fine with that, I suppose. But it just goes to show that far more families push their children to attend college, and the expectations are set too high, when many kids growing up really need some vocational skills and real-life street smarts to survive in this world. Tuition prices have been jacked-up absurdly by the proliferation of scholarships and grants. "Diversity" means any view except conservatives or Christians. We are in need of a reckoning, especially for land-grant and "Ivy League" institutions.

erelong

Deregulation is the simple fix: quality of education and cost has predictably gone up due to regulation, as well as costs of doing business