
Expert predicts 25% of colleges will fail in the next 20 years - ryanmercer
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/expert-predicts-25-percent-of-colleges-will-fail-in-the-next-20-years-2019-08-31/
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Ancalagon
You wanted to commoditize higher ed and demand people have degrees just to
essentially survive, yet you've defunded higher ed. This is exactly how a
market functions. Consumers no longer have the time nor money to waste on
degrees which are poor returns on investments, either because they came from a
college no one had ever heard of, or because the skillset that the degree
endowed is not in-demand. Really this is just the market reacting so I don't
feel like its a huge surprise. (I guess the article kind of expressed this
sentiment already, but I feel its worth reiterating).

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paulddraper
> You

Who?

> defunded higher ed

I am unaware of this. I thought public funding increased over the last decade
or so.

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Craighead
Not even a little bit.

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paulddraper
Alright, looks like my "decade" time period was off. State/local funding for
2-4 year institutions did in fact increase 2% from 2007 to 2017 [1], but that
figure is negative after adjusting for 18% cumulative inflation.

It's been rising more recently though.

2012-2017 had a 15% increase (20% per student), with only 7% cumulative
inflation.

Either way, "defunded higher ed" is exaggerated.

[1] [https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-
tabl...](https://trends.collegeboard.org/college-pricing/figures-tables/total-
and-student-state-and-local-funding-and-public-enrollment-over-time)

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ryanmercer
This could be very, very bad, if it does in fact start to happen with any
regularity.

If you have a bunch of colleges go out of business you suddenly have a
scenario where degrees from those institutions are either potentially seen as
invalid as they can't be verified and/or you have degree mills going
"Nnnnnoiiiicccceeee, you want a college degree? Pick from one of these hundred
colleges and we will send you aged printed transcripts and a perfect replica
of their diploma" and then you suddenly have tens of thousands, or millions,
of people with degrees that are fake but can't be proven to be.

Many employers would probably just refuse to acknowledge degrees from those
institutions or at least considerably discount their value compared to an
applicant that has a degree from a university that hasn't shuttered. Worse,
you'd have people still paying for loans for degrees that can't be verified.

~~~
crustacean
Colleges themselves are not the only institutions keeping records about
students. For instance, you can send people your transcripts and proofs of
graduation through
[https://studentclearinghouse.org/](https://studentclearinghouse.org/), a
nonprofit

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hydrox24
I'm not sure we have any reason to believe this. There are two reasons given:

1\. families had fewer kids after the 2008 recession.

2\. Alternative forms of education.

The latter will be good news, if it does displaced old colleges. The former,
which is waaay earlier in the article and therefore probably the more
important cause (in the opinion of this article) could be swung at any moment
by a change in immigration, welfare, or regulatory policies on state (for the
latter two) or Federal levels.

I don't see much reason to take this prediction seriously. Are private
investments or bonds of some kind in these institutions tanking?

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midnitewarrior
Their tuition is rising at unsustainable rates, and institutions are making
huge investments in facilities whose loans depend on the unsustainable rise in
tuition in order to pay them off.

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frankbreetz
From the article: "I think we're gonna see a lot more of these sort of
flexible, affordable, convenient programs." You want college to be controlled
by the free market you have to compete. You can't just keep increasing costs
and offering nothing new and not expect consequences.

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rdtwo
Those 25% were probably degree mills or scam colleges anyway so good riddance.
Too many colleges out there that give out non accredited “degrees” and just
extract money from people that don’t know better

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gnusty_gnurc
Good riddance: it's cosmic justice for the excessive administrative staff and
luxury accommodations to go away after decades of extorting students and
chaining them with debt.

