
US colleges struggling with low enrollment are closing at increasing rate (2019) - oska
https://america.cgtn.com/2019/08/02/us-colleges-struggling-with-low-enrollment-are-closing-at-increasing-rate
======
jessehorne
As much as I'd love to pursue higher education and to get a degree, I simply
can't afford thousands of dollars every semester. I'm not 17 anymore so it's
harder to convince me to get into that much debt. If I ended up owing 150k and
could afford to pay back 1k a month, It would take me 12.5 years. I'm sorry
but it's just not worth it. I can't think of many sober people that would
disagree. If an organization like Khan Academy wanted to charge ~$1200 a year
for a 4-year program that I could receive an accredited degree from, I'd sign
up immediately.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Just FYI state schools have generally have good resident tuition rates. You
can get a 4 year EE or CS degree for less than $40k (cost of a nice car these
days). Those degrees count just as much and they might fill in some gaps you
don't know you have.

~~~
jessehorne
That's a lot better than some tuition-totals I've seen but at the end of the
day, my biggest problem with this system is that it's not accessible to the
poor/working-class without loans. I attended a state school for around a month
or two. I don't think I knew one person that wasn't paying for it with a loan.
I think lower cost is a step in the right direction but I also think there's
plenty more to do.

~~~
JamesBarney
My local community college is HCC which costs $3,500 a year, and U of H the
local university costs $9,500 a year. So $27,000 to get a degree, which is not
a lot of money compared to 4 years of time and effort. Assuming you're waiting
tables that would be $120,000 in lost wages.

~~~
kxyvr
Outside of the potential social or philosophical benefits to going to college,
a degree can be looked at like an investment. In the case of Houston, UH has
good programs hooked into the petrochemical and banking sector in the city.
The Bauer College of Business is well regarded and commodities traders start
off at around $100k/year in salary and go _far_ higher:

[https://work.chron.com/commodity-trader-base-
salary-28291.ht...](https://work.chron.com/commodity-trader-base-
salary-28291.html)

The internship program at the university help facilitate a pathway into these
kinds of jobs:

[https://careercenter.bauer.uh.edu/internships/](https://careercenter.bauer.uh.edu/internships/)

Alternatively, the chemical and petrochemical engineering departments are also
well regarded. The local paper is only listing the average staring salary
salary nationwide, but I recall new local engineering hires making somewhere
between $75-$100k:

[https://work.chron.com/average-chemical-engineering-
starting...](https://work.chron.com/average-chemical-engineering-starting-
salary-19178.html)

Most seasoned engineers that I know of in the field make in excess of
$200k/year and they retire as low millionaires.

The point is that $120k in lost wages pales in comparison to the financial
security a degree can provide assuming that one has the appetite and ability
for that kind of work. UH and HCC get a lot of grief, but it's a reasonable
school that produces good people.

~~~
Gunax
I think in software we have been spoiled. For the most part, degrees are
really optional. This is mostly luck as it's possible to do software dev at
home (try doing petroleum engineering at home).

Most professions require a degree either by legal mandate, or by essence.

------
gjsman-1000
Personally, besides a lot of this being self-inflicted, can we just mention
how predatory colleges are?

You're a young 17 year old. You can sign on to owe up to over a hundred
thousand dollars, if you choose to go to a private college, even though you
can't smoke or drink until you're 21 (and, if you live in Mississippi, you
aren't legally at the age of majority until you are 21!). Not only that, but
it's a really hard debt to get out of and they will strongly pressure your
family to cosign, which (should you fail) is a great way to wreck a
relationship.

In fact, the 21 thing is pretty dumb anyway. You can get married, enter a
lottery, take out over $100K in debt, or join the army and get killed, or
gamble away your life savings, or buy gun ammunition, or sue people or get
sued, but heaven forbid you buy a beer.

Next, schoolbooks. Ludicrously overpriced, to try to convince you to "sell
back" your books at the end of the semester for a pittance. Colleges claim to
love diversity - if so, you might consider not price gouging books to oblivion
and making it harder for lower classes to afford college, perhaps?

~~~
trophycase
Diversity is mostly a corporate "ideology"

~~~
ewindal
No, corporate adopted it because it’s profitable right now.

~~~
dgellow
Just curious about this: What makes diversity profitable?

~~~
owenmarshall
Because the lens of American society has moved beyond the acceptance of overt
discriminatory practices in many areas, and business moves with societal
expectations to capture money.

Now, go tell a realtor you want a house in a low crime, quiet neighborhood
with highly rated schools and they'll know exactly what you are looking for.
Or tell the hiring manager that the candidate you interviewed may not "fit
well with the team" and that they should keep looking - they'll get it too.

~~~
dgellow
You seem to point to hidden racism, but that doesn't answer the question. I
see no discussion of profitability in your examples.

~~~
owenmarshall
Take the contraposition: being overtly racist or segregationist is not
profitable.

How many whites only lunch counters exist today?

~~~
dgellow
I get your point, but I feel that’s a bit off topic. You can definitely lose
money by being overtly discriminatory, that doesn’t imply that diversity is a
lucrative thing. Not being discriminatory doesn’t imply that you’re
promoting/focusing on diversity.

------
porknubbins
This is a little sad but probably inevitable. I went to one of these rural
small liberal arts school decades ago (good faculty but no national
reputation). Even then it felt anachronistic with a bunch of privileged young
people studying like English and philosophy and history but in a giant
beautiful isolated summer camp. There was no real connection to industry or
jobs (or the outside world) and not much STEM so if you didn’t have
connections you kinda got screwed. Makes me want to reread The Secret History
though, it perfectly captured the weird cozy but suffocating vibe of being
trapped in an isolated bubble with the same people for years on end.

~~~
dcolkitt
Yet that environment is probably much closer to the original purpose of a
university than most others. Philosophy students at a small liberal arts
school are much closer in spirit to Renaissance-era Oxford, Sorbonne, or
Bologna. At least compared to STEM majors at an urban campus in a work-study
program.

The point of a university pretty much is to hole yourself away from the
broader world and engross yourself in the life of the mind squirrels away from
practical concerns about the real world. It's kind of weird that we shoehorned
this whole idea of career preparation for mass populations into an institution
that's uniquely unsuited for that specific purpose.

Then we get pissed off because when those same universities don't do a good
job preparing students for the job market. But that's like complaining that a
winter coat is uncomfortable to wear to the beach.

~~~
koheripbal
...and also closer to the "original" fact that only the very few children of
the privileged class could afford to attend and study nothing but Philosophy.

How many philosophers do we need?

~~~
homonculus1
Fucking _all of them!_

------
throwawayamused
Well, well, well... if it isn't the consequences of your own actions.

1.) Colleges jack up their tuition to the point of being un-affordable
(multiple years of salary), forcing students to take on massive amounts of
debt at the start of their careers

2.) Prospective students are unwilling to become servitude to student loan
debt at no-name small colleges and realize that college is hardly the only
means for employment

3.) Small colleges close due to low enrollment

~~~
gjsman-1000
4.) Regardless of how you feel about it, college faculty and courses generally
urged students to postpone marriage and childbearing, ironically resulting in
less children to grow up and take college in the next generation.

~~~
killjoywashere
5) Those students, now parents, not only have fewer children, but having seen
their older friends delay retirement to fund their kids education, and are now
discouraging their own children from overspending on private schools.

------
throwlaplace
the photo and the first frame of the youtube video are from columbia (in ny).
kind of ironic since elite schools probably aren't facing these issues.

>According to Moody’s, in the next few years the closure rate for non-profit,
U.S. private colleges will climb to around 15 a year—triple what it was in
2014.

you know what kind of editorializing of titles i'd like? one that puts the
lede front and center. there are 1687[1] private nonprofit unis in the US. so
this is a rate of less than 1% a year. is that really alarming?

[1] [https://www.usnews.com/education/best-
colleges/articles/2019...](https://www.usnews.com/education/best-
colleges/articles/2019-02-15/how-many-universities-are-in-the-us-and-why-that-
number-is-changing)

~~~
ArtWomb
Elite research universities are definitely seeing constraints. Or, alternately
speaking, theoretical physical and life sciences experiments are getting
extremely expensive ;)

I think the college of the future looks a lot like USC Film School. It's
virtually identical to a production quality film or television studio. But
tuition, room and board plus stipend will all be provided in part via
corporate sponsorship or government funding. Product development exists
symbiotically with research as "pure" funding is priced out, even by the
wealthiest of donors

Dominate the Fight: The Army's Synthetic Training Environment (USC-ICT)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWrquTLhMDU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWrquTLhMDU)

~~~
killjoywashere
Ah, I've been wondering where all these slow training videos with atrocious,
uncanny-valley NPCs in uniform come from.

------
Seenso
For those who aren't aware: CGTN is the Chinese version of Russia Today.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/business/cctv-china-
usa-p...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/business/cctv-china-usa-
propaganda.html)

~~~
bikenaga
Here's an article on Green Mountain from Inside Higher Ed. It contains a
little more detail.

[https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/01/24/green-
mountai...](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/01/24/green-mountain-
latest-small-college-close)

------
hurricanetc
The comments here are divorced from reality and the article.

The average student loan debt for students who took out a loan is around
$30,000. Some have more, as averages work, but most have less. How? About 30%
of students graduate with no debt.

Furthermore, the number of schools closing is absolutely trivial and if you
read the article you would see that the real issue seems to be plummeting
birth rates in the northeast US. The school in the article was charging
$12,000 per year in tuition on average. A far cry from what the comments here
would have you believe. “$150k in debt.”

~~~
blaser-waffle
Someone on HN reading the article? HAH

------
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
> _While annual tuition was around $36,000, no one paid that. “We were
> actually discounting that about 67%. So the average student was really only
> paying about $12,000 for tuition,” said Allen._

The opaque cost of college is one of the problems. If it cost $12k to go there
they should advertise a $12k tuition and maybe wouldn’t be closing.

~~~
asmodlol
Meanwhile college is 500€ a year in France...

~~~
rayiner
Meanwhile the tax wedge in France is 50%, versus 30% in the United States:
[https://images.app.goo.gl/w7bDooKFRoRewLYn8](https://images.app.goo.gl/w7bDooKFRoRewLYn8).
On a $50,000 income, it’ll take only 4 years for the tax savings to offset the
benefit of “free college” (assuming average public school tuition). If you
include the average cost of employer-provided health insurance in the tax
wedge, you come out ahead in the US in 7 years (assuming 5% rate of return).

Of course, then there is the fact that Americans earn more. To use teachers as
an example of a college required job: [https://www.oecd-
ilibrary.org/docserver/gov_glance-2017-35-e...](https://www.oecd-
ilibrary.org/docserver/gov_glance-2017-35-en.pdf?expires=1578976467&id=id&accname=guest&checksum=10D51B9B7B45160447639128805435E2).
Average salary of $27,000 (adjusted for purchasing power) in France versus
$40,000 in the US. Before employer taxes is about $36,000 in France. Before
employer taxes and health insurance it’s about $49,000 in the US. Applying the
tax wedge again, the US teacher is making more than $10,000 per year more to
start, and will offset the difference in free college in a bit over 4 years.
After 15 years experience, the US teacher will be earning $75,000 before
employer side taxes and health insurance, while the French teacher will be at
$51,000.

~~~
Glawen
Meanwhile you know little about tax system in Europe and you just blindly
apply a ratio to an average taken from a picture. In France, raising a family
or marry someone who earns less than you will reduce your income tax, unlike
Germany for example.

About teacher's pay, if you look into the details, you will find that the
french state motto is "Do as I say, not as I do". All the annoying employment
law do not apply when the french state is the employer. As such, the
brutto/netto salary ratio for teachers is bigger than other employee. But the
main perk is not salary, it is the 2 month summer holidays and job for life,
and of course free healthcare and pension plan.

~~~
rayiner
Teacher pensions in France don’t seem particularly generous:
[https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/12/10/last-straw-
tea...](https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/12/10/last-straw-teachers-
france-join-nationwide-strike).

> One teacher’s union put it this way. A retiree with a 40 year career in
> teaching might have finally attained a salary of 3,200 euros a month. Right
> now, they would retire with 2,281 euros a month, but after the reforms, that
> would decrease to 1,803 euros.

Here in Anne Arundel county Maryland (which is kind of a middling state in
terms of tax and public employee benefits), teachers with a bachelors degree
earn $45,000 to start going up to $65,000. Pension benefits from the Maryland
state employee retirement system after a 40-year career (to match the
calculation above), would be $32,000. But Maryland teachers are also eligible
for Social Security. At that salary range, that’s be an additional $25,000 per
year.

People have this idea that lower salaries in Europe are made up by the better
benefits. That might be true for low income earners, but it's mathematically
impossible for that to be true for above-median earners. Europe has more
benefits and a flatter income distribution, but one of the costs of that is
significantly less economic production.

Even factoring out corporate profits and the income of the top 1%, the U.S.
economy amounts to about $47,400 per person. For France, its about $33,600.[1]
Given that French taxes rest mainly on the bottom 99%, and provide a more
generous safety net for the poor, it's literally impossible for an above-
median person like a teacher to be anywhere near as well off, even accounting
for benefits, in France as compared to the US.[2]

[1] This is based on looking at the current accounts for the various
countries. I estimate $2 trillion in top 1% income and $1.9 trillion in
corporate profits for the U.S., and $188 billion in corporate profits and $139
billion in top 1% income in France. The latter calculation relies on the
reported figure that the top 1% earns 10% of all income in France and 20% in
the U.S., but assumes that personal income as a share of GDP is similar in the
two countries.

[2] Note that the $5,000 extra that Americans pay for healthcare compared to
the French will reduce that gap somewhat for the average worker. But since we
excluded corporate profits and top 1% incomes from the calculation, most of
that extra money is going to be redistributed to incomes of bottom-99%
healthcare workers.

------
realbarack
What happens to the campus when a liberal arts college shuts down? In Green
Mountain College's case it seems like they're looking for a buyer to the tune
of $20 million or so. [0] I think it'd be pretty rad if old college campuses
turned into hubs for remote workers; who's working on that?

[0] [https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/as-green-mountain-
colleg...](https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/as-green-mountain-college-
sells-off-its-assets-poultney-ponders-its-future/Content?oid=28561240)

~~~
topkai22
Once there is a place I’m supposed to go to work remotely, am I still working
remotely?

Complete Side note- I think there must be a market selling RVs to remote
workers that work well as home offices. I converted a shed to a home office,
but I spent almost as much as a similarly sized RV even after doing a lot of
the work myself. The RV has the advantage of being easy to deliver, avoids
building code restrictions, can come well wired for power and internet, and
you get to have an RV.

~~~
tdfx
When they're self-driving, at least on highways, I'm never going to work from
anything else ever again.

------
alharith
Did US Colleges struggling with low enrollment not close before? What kind of
chicanery was going on to keep them open? Is the increasing rate a
coincidence? The converse of this statement sounds borderline hilarious: US
Colleges Not Struggling with Low Enrollment are Not closing at an increasing
rate. Intuition tells me the larger colleges, especially those with sports
pedigree are growing substantially, as consumers are now increasingly more
aware of costs associated with degrees, and are opting in for more affordable
options. The NCES projects an increase of 2% overall increase in enrollment in
4 year programs and a 3% increase in 3 year programs over the next 10 years,
so these kids are going somewhere.

~~~
killjoywashere
> Did US Colleges struggling with low enrollment not close before? What kind
> of chicanery was going on to keep them open?

The rising tide of population growth lifted all boats. High school graduations
peaked in 2013. That's total, not rate. Presumably the rate peaked even
sooner. There's no more American-born students to victimize. And with the
current administration's immigration policies, the US higher education market
has had an "opportunity to explore a limited growth marketplace".

------
wyldfire
> Part of the problem is demographics.

> The number of high school seniors is dropping – dramatically in some parts
> of the country

Are we headed for inverted pyramid like Japan?

~~~
gibolt
The other problem is ballooning administration and the associated costs. The
administration can run it into the ground and be unwilling to trim their
unnecessary colleagues/selves, preferring to no longer exist or allow their
hired professors to provide a valuable service

~~~
jonathankoren
This isn't true.

The main driver of the growth of public education costs is legislative funding
cuts. As government has stopped paying for higher education, this cost has
been shifted to families, making what once was affordable, increasingly
unaffordable. This crisis is is the result of choices we've made.

[https://www.savingforcollege.com/article/how-do-state-
fundin...](https://www.savingforcollege.com/article/how-do-state-funding-cuts-
affect-tuition-inflation)

[https://www.apmreports.org/story/2019/02/25/government-
colle...](https://www.apmreports.org/story/2019/02/25/government-college-
funding-cuts)

[https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-
tax/funding-d...](https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/funding-
down-tuition-up)

~~~
matchbok
Gov does not pay for private colleges.

~~~
L-four
Hahahaha good one.

~~~
killjoywashere
Yeah, take a look at University Affiliated Research Centers if you think
Stanford and MIT do not receive federal dollars. They compete with McKinsey
for highest hourly rate.

------
nafizh
>Allen is spending his remaining days wrapping things up. The coffee machines
are going away and he’s now giving tours of the campus to prospective buyers,
including Chinese buyers.

This reminds me talks of China buying up land and properties in US. I wonder
why they are doing this.

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
Occam's razor / base rates.

China is like 20% of the world's entire population. It's close to as much of
the global economy as the US, or the EU. It's way bigger than Japan.

There's a ton of wealth there, and a ton of rich businesses and people.

As things stand right now, China should account for about 15% of all asset
purchases globally. It's not surprising if a lot of land and schools and
houses and business in the US are being bought by China. There's similar
amounts being bought by the EU and Japan.

A conspiracy theorist would tell you it's because a lot of people inside and
outside of China think the RMB is over valued (by as much as 50%). There's
probably truth to this, but compared to the above mentioned base rates -- the
affects are likely negligible.

~~~
ericd
I would expect rates of land purchases in a country to be heavily biased
towards its citizens, not be near their share of global GDP...

~~~
seanmcdirmid
The USA is an open market compared to other locales. It’s why the Japanese
bought up a lot of real estate during the 80s, and why the Chinese are doing
it now.

~~~
ericd
I know, I just mean that people are generally going to spend much more of
their wealth on local land than abroad, so there's no way the land purchase
breakdown is going to be anything like the global GDP breakdown.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
True, but they already do. China is basically just exporting some of the
property bubble they already have back home (just like the Japanese did in the
80s).

------
droithomme
As others here have pointed out, if you have absolute top scores, and GPA, and
have done awesome projects, then you can get a full ride somewhere. Just got
to find that ride.

If not, then wait until over 25 so that your parent's income isn't considered,
assuming they make say more than $50k or so combined family income. (Ie more
than the federal poverty line.)

Top standardized test scores are necessary for financial aid and admittance to
a top program. Plus a high GPA. The GPA requirement sucks since it's
completely arbitrary. Maybe your GPA is low because you are super high IQ and
teachers hated your guts. That happens often.

------
jwilber
Here’s a recent article from NPR discussing the problems smaller colleges face
when enrollment decreases [1].

Many of the issues (faculty cuts, etc.) have been discussed here, but
something I find interesting is that, in order to stay afloat, they’re
changing the demographics they target. Namely, first-gen students (this has
been an existing target for sometime) and returning adults:

“ The challenge is that returning adult students are a lot harder to recruit.
For high school students, Orians says, "we know where those people are. High
schoolers are a captive audience." But when it comes to adults, she says,
"they are everywhere. They are working. They are parents. They are engaged
with their community." “

That said, they recognize recruitment isn’t always enough. They also plan to
explore industry partnerships, further teacher training, and, most
importantly, student retention:

“ Last week, new numbers on graduation rates revealed that 60% of students who
start college get their degree in six years. That's the highest its been in
nearly a decade. “

1\. [https://www.npr.org/2019/12/16/787909495/fewer-students-
are-...](https://www.npr.org/2019/12/16/787909495/fewer-students-are-going-to-
college-heres-why-that-matters)

------
blisterpeanuts
My 15-year-old will be dealing with the college rat race pretty soon. Some of
her friends have been taking community college or online college courses in
their later high school years. Some have graduated high school and are
working, taking some remote courses at night, methodically working toward
career goals while not going into debt.

The old monolithic approach to college, really an extension of the K-12
system, seems increasingly impractical and irrelevant for today's needs. I
agree with others here who argue for taking courses on an ad hoc basis,
focusing more on growing a career starting from age 18, rather than immersing
oneself in higher ed for four years, hoping and assuming there's a nice job
waiting at the other end.

Look, if you have $200K or $300K lying around, great, go to a nice liberal
arts school and enjoy yourself for a few years. There are few things in life
more fun than being a college student, stuffing your mind with knowledge
during the day and getting soused at night.

But in the real world... these little liberal arts schools are a luxury our
society no longer can afford, nor do they really serve much of a purpose
anymore. The only shame is that we potentially will lose some writers, poets,
and artists.

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
Paying tuition to the tune of $200k-300k is not a prerequisite to becoming a
writer, poet, nor artist.

------
KoftaBob
Good riddance. Colleges want the benefits of the free market when it comes to
nearly unlimited demand for higher education, but act like victims when
students finally decide to be price sensitive.

The vast majority of people go to college so they can get a job with that
degree. When schools are charging obscene tuitions while simultaneously doing
a terrible job at landing those students good jobs, I have 0 sympathy for
them. Good riddance to these deadweights.

------
scarejunba
Let's be honest. US colleges did this thing where when they grew they also
just grew costs without growing delivery. The problem with costs is they're
sticky downward.

This, of course, is a good thing that these colleges are closing. Can you
imagine a place teaching economics when it cannot apply it to itself?

~~~
swaits
Fueled by cheap, even free, money. Defense, housing, education, healthcare.
The market does work.

~~~
ngold
A captured loan monopoly that puts kids in a non bankruptcy position since
2005. In 15 years, close to 2 trillion in debt.

------
joker3
You think it's bad now? Wait until you see what happens in 2026.

As many of you remember, the bottom dropped out of the US economy in 2008. As
a result, many people delayed having children for a few years (or just decided
not to). That means that the freshman class of 2026 is going to be
significantly smaller than that of 2025, and that's going to shut down a large
number of small and financially strapped colleges.

It's difficult to imagine exactly what's going to happen afterwards, but we
can be confident that things will be different.

~~~
Gunax
Hmm, that's an interesting perspective I never considered. I wonder if it gets
easier to get admitted to (med/law/top undergrad) schools if there is a
population drop.

~~~
joker3
Probably in 2030 we're going to see a similar but smaller hit to those sorts
of schools. What effect that has is anyone's guess right now.

------
rolltiide
The job market is still looking for a way to separate ideal candidates from
the general population.

The economy spends a lot of time dealing with unvetted untalented people that
“need a chance“ to perform as much as someone that is unvetted but talented.

It doesn't have to be college, but there isnt another system so robust and
bussing as many people throught it. Sure corporations can try apprenticeship
programs but that will take a decade for it to be broad enough.

------
mlang23
I never understood why it is a desireable thing to put the young into
unimaginablly high debt just to get educated. This, the death penalty and no
public healthcare are the reasons why I dont really consider the USA as the
role model for modern society they'd like to be.

------
fiftyfifty
Most of these colleges that are closing or merging are small private liberal
arts schools, many have a religious affiliation. The main problem is not cost
per say (as the article points out some of these schools are only
$12,000/year), it's that many of these schools have not updated their
curricula for decades. The degrees from these institutions offers little in
the way of preparation for a 21st century career that could justify even their
modest cost. There are plenty of small schools in the Northeast that are
thriving, schools that have changed with the times that offer competitive
programs in technology, science, medicine, business, politics, law etc.

------
metaphyze
Why didn't they just ADVERTISE the tuition as $12,000 (or maybe $15,000)
rather than $36,000 if they were discounting the tuition for 67% of the
students anyway. A lot of people probably didn't even bother to apply because
of sticker shock.

------
Merrill
>In Vermont, three colleges have ceased operations this year, losing roughly
1,000 students.

So 333 students per college or an average freshman class of about 100 per
college?

~~~
fiftyfifty
Vermont has an uphill battle. The overall state population is declining, in
particular younger adults are leaving in droves to move to bigger cities.
There just isn't much in-state demand for high ed in Vermont and few out of
state students looking to move there.

------
grammers
Why does colleges have to be that expensive? I'd love to study, but simply
can't afford it. Other countries can do it for less, why can't we?

~~~
colechristensen
Waste on ever growing administration overhead and top tier administration
salary combined with prestige construction unrelated to academic or research
success.

Fueled by cheap loans difficult to discharge in bankruptcy, a cultural idea
that everybody needs a degree to be a worthwhile person, and a glut of degree-
bearing people competing for lower and lower tier jobs.

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IanSanders
Can self-organised education communities be a thing?

A big chunk of university education is collaborative anyway (cringy "now turn
to your peer and discuss", partnered lab work, group assessments) and it would
help improve higher variety of skills.

Maybe this way we can learn with an aim of learning, as opposite to optimising
the grade.

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torgian
It's no wonder. Collegs/Univeristies are insanely expensive, even if you count
the residential programs put into place.

I can get my masters degree with 7k out of pocket in another country. As a US
citizen. I haven't found a similar program in the States that is that cheap.

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scottlocklin
College was obviously a bubble 10 years ago. Couldn't happen to a more
deserving group of people. Better still: make all colleges responsible for
student debt.

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fastball
Good.

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briandear
Good. Make a product the market will buy at a price the market supports or go
out of business. The American public has been sold a bill of goods when it
comes to the necessity of student loan debt and degrees of questionable value.

This isn’t a slight on higher education as a concept, but a condemnation of
higher education as an industry. Higher education inflation exceeds that of
even health care.

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ptah
> shrinking number of high-school seniors in the U.S.

What would be the reason behind this?

~~~
fiftyfifty
There are simply fewer kids, people have been having less children, getting
married later or not at all etc:

[https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/12/06/high-
school-g...](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/12/06/high-school-
graduates-drop-number-and-be-increasingly-diverse)

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ycombonator
Population decline from not having kids.

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zerof1l
I feel like traditional universities is a dying breed. Of course some big and
famous ones like MIT will stay, but in general it is not worth it. If you want
to get a degree, instead of $36k a year, you can enroll into online university
like UoPeople where the entire 4 year Bachelor Degree will cost you $4k.

Disclosure: I'm not affiliated with UoPeople, but I did graduate from there.

~~~
bitL
It's a nationally accredited university, not regionally, so you are out of
luck getting into any regular university afterwards as all of them require
regional accreditation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_accreditation...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_accreditation_in_the_United_States#Regional_accreditation_compared_to_national_accreditation)

