The Higher Education Battle – Students 0, Universities -100

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The Higher Education Battle – Students: 0 / Universities: -100

It’s Not a Gap Year; It’s Just a Gap

Today’s college students are disoriented, denied the benefits that college degrees once bestowed on past college grads (affordable housing, upward mobility, good jobs with a predictable career path and a stable environment), disillusioned with their elders and the American leadership in particular, terrified of climate change that will impact them more than any prior generation, grappling with the absurdity of tuition costs and student loans and still recovering from the effects of stagnation during the pandemic (remote “learning”?). They believe that they are being ignored, stuck with a bill of good by old folks… and in many ways, are ready to give up and withdraw from a world that is obviously insane.

The growing sense of alienation, detachment from the country of their parents and grandparents, their disdain for the animosity their elders place on “socialism” (a philosophy that doesn’t seem too bad to them) and spending to enhance human benefits, the fact that they are paying more by far for stuff like tuition (which has risen at three times the cost of living over the last five decades) and housing than their parents ever paid, and the only thing they seem to show for it is debt and more debt. And a lunatic vs an octogenarian are the presidential finalists.

As I watched the same Columbia University building that was occupied in 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War protests (where 700 Columbia students were arrested), repeat itself in the Gaza controversy with a new student takeover… with protests at college campuses across the entire United States, I felt their shudders of “what do I really have to lose, anyway?” or “I don’t really care anymore!” or “I care too much, but not about the stuff you care about”… as antisemitism seeps in but also “stop the genocide with US money, investments and munitions” where Jewish kids join pro-Palestinian protestors while strong pro-Israelis fight precisely in the other direction.

But we really have sold this generation that bill of goods. With less than a quarter of jobs truly requiring a college degree, we’ve pushed our children to believe that without a college education they were less valuable as people. College is no longer seen as a necessary value, and the falling attendance rate, pushed hard by the pause in education from the pandemic, should alarm the proponents of higher education all over this country. But as LZ Granderson postulates in the April 30th Los Angeles Times, maybe it is the education that we are offering (with the dept it now carries) that is actually vastly overpriced and the lower value:

“A 2023 study of nearly 6,000 human resources professionals and leaders in corporate America found only 22% required applicants to have a college degree... The labor shortage is one aspect of the conversation. The shift in academia’s place in society is more significant. [Tale some time off before going to college… if they ever go back.] I’m sure that sounds like a good thing for young people joining the workforce. As an educator, my concern is what happens to a society if only the wealthy pursued higher education. Oh, that’s right: We did that already, back before there was a middle class … and paid vacations.

“Though it must be said the lowering of hiring requirements isn’t the only threat to the college experience… Academia has publicly mishandled the campus tensions and student protests that began after the Hamas attack against Israel on Oct. 7, and that certainly hasn’t been good for academia either. Neither has canceling commencement speakers … or commencement itself. Add in the rising costs — up nearly 400% in 30 years compared with 1990 rates — and, well, the college bubble hasn’t quite burst, but it’s hemorrhaging.

“Forgiving student loan debt — whether you agree with the idea or not — addresses the past…. The future of colleges depends on the future of labor. If employers are making it easier to enter corporate America without a degree, then universities must adjust how much cash they try to extract from students and their families, because the return on investment will be falling.

“College enrollment has already been declining for a decade, and it’s not because Americans have become less ambitious or less willing to invest in their children’s futures. It’s because of eroding confidence that a degree guarantees a higher quality of life… Imagine that your high school senior is interested in going to college and wants to major in education or communication or the arts. The sticker price for tuition, even at a state school, is going to look pretty steep. If your child were headed toward a degree in engineering or business, that same tuition might feel like a better bet.

“There’s no reason tuition rates couldn’t vary to reflect this reality. Colleges and universities should set tuition rates for classes based on the earning potential of the discipline studied… If our grocery stores can figure out a way to charge us more for organic produce, then surely this great nation can devise a system to set college costs that accounts for future earnings.

“For example, according to the National Education Assn., the starting salary for a teacher in California is about $55,000, the fourth highest in the nation. For California residents, the cost to attend UCLA comes to almost $35,000 a year, without financial aid. That math just doesn’t work… It’s easy to see why 20% of the nation’s teachers work a second job during the school year to make ends meet. Between 2020 and 2022, the nation lost about 300,000 educators , and we’re facing a teacher shortage. To address the issue, a number of states have loosened the teacher certification rules to make it easier to get more bodies in the classroom, which sounds … less than ideal.

“Instead, why not lower the cost of credit hours for college students pursuing a degree in education? Wouldn’t parents feel more comfortable knowing the people in the classroom set out to teach and earned the credentials?... If colleges don’t find ways like this to lower costs for at least some students, higher education will become a relic. Just as cable cutting reshaped the economics of the TV industry, the trend of corporate America moving away from degree requirements is going to put pressure on universities to make some big changes.”

An American student, traveling to Germany for a college education in English, can expect basic fees of around $500/year plus books and living expenses. We desperately need more medical doctors, nurses and technicians, more STEM educated people in the work force, yet those folks are the ones, if they head on to professional or tech-specialized grad school who can easily amass a serious six-figure pile of student dept that MAGA Republicans do not want government to support in order to keep taxes for the richest lower than most of the rest of the world. We’re the only developed country on earth without universal healthcare; we pay an average of double per person compared with our national peers… and our life expectancy is unsurprisingly falling. Why can’t we actually begin to offer our rising generations what they truly deserve… need?

I’m Peter Dekom, one of those old guys, but I actually wonder why we’ve not only deprioritized our own children but have actually increased the cost of everything they need to absurd levels… and decreased the hope and dignity that once defined a young American mind entering the workforce.