The decline of college, it appears, has started.
For the third consecutive year, college enrollment has fallen after climbing for decades, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“One of the longest-running and most important trends in American history has reversed itself,” Bloomberg’s Noah Smith wrote.
The decline has primarily been among older students and two-year schools, cohorts where the benefit of college is more marginal than for high-school graduates attending four-year institutions.
To an extent, the enrollment decline could be expected. Costs are rising, and as more people gain a degree, the “college premium” diminishes because it isn’t so exclusive. Students, in effect, pay more for something that’s not as valuable as it once was, which lowers the marginal value for some students so that the benefit disappears.
With more four-year degrees granted, a two-year degree isn’t valued as much, which makes getting a four-year degree or not pursuing a degree at all more appealing. Even if students aren’t taking on debt for a two-year program, they might think working for two years is a better prospect.
“College is probably good for almost everyone. But just because it’s good for you doesn’t mean it’s worth the increasingly steep price tag,” Smith noted.
The Atlantic provided a few anecdotes for Smith’s argument: not all students will benefit from a degree, and those who want to pursue an alternative career path that doesn’t include a college degree struggle against the national fixation with college degrees.
The decline in enrollments presents a welcome opportunity to reform higher education and the assumption of what postsecondary education should be. As it stands, careers that require a bachelor’s degree ignore qualified candidates who lack a college education. That’s bad for companies and bad for economic opportunity in America.
The craze over college degrees has led many students into debt through worthless universities. Rather than designing policies to boost enrollment, a better path could be a broader acceptance of alternative career training programs after high school.
