Colleges Are Dying, Long Live Higher Education

To forecast our future, we have to identify patterns of change early. But rather than only seeking out collections of signals representing growth, it behooves us to simultaneously study what’s crumbling – signals of decay.

After all, growth stems from deep fractures.

One of today’s most glaring fractures worthy of our attention is higher education. The changing landscape of higher education is ground zero for radical social change and required innovation.

Good news!

TVs, toys and software have never been cheaper in human history.

Bad news: College tuition and textbooks have never been more expensive.

This is according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics which has been tracking the prices of consumer goods and services relative to inflation for the last two decades.

College tuition — second to healthcare — is the most “increasingly expensive” buy in America.

How coincidental that these are two of the most important purchases one can obtain, and certainly the sort which more should have access to, not less?

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in the 1968 academic year, it cost $1,545 to attend a public, four-year institution (including tuition, fees, room and board).

In 2020, it was $29,033.

For the fifth of college students attending private schools, that figure is significantly higher.

Noteworthy as the cost of (manufacturing) education and textbooks have not risen at the same rate.

Is it any more expensive to “produce” education today?

This is perhaps why NYU, among many schools across the country, are developing “Schools for Professional Studies” — certificate program alternatives dedicated to furthering education during a moment when traditional degrees are slipping.

According to a report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, the number of students who earned undergraduate degrees fell by -1.6% in 2022, reversing nearly a decade of steady growth.

As of last year, only 51% of Gen Z are interested in pursuing a four-year degree, down from 71% a couple years earlier. The pandemic and Zoom screens have put things into focus. And students’ parents are on the same page: nearly half of parents don’t want their kids to go straight to a four-year college.

Graduate degrees are falling out of favor just as dramatically.

For The Wall Street Journal, Lindsay Ellis reports,

“At Harvard, widely regarded as the nation’s top business school, M.B.A. applications fell by more than 15% [in 2022]. The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania recorded more than a 13% drop. At other elite U.S. programs — including Yale University’s School of Management, as well as the business schools at the University of Chicago and New York University — applications dropped by 10% or more for the class of 2024. Cost was the biggest factor blunting demand.”

Meanwhile, this decline is about to worsen — not just because of prices and attitudes, but because of significant demographic change.

Kevin Carey, VP for Education Policy at New Am