Enrollment down if so, how much is it because of a pandemic?
Or did it start before the pandemic? Yeah.
Recent numbers on enrollment rates suggest that enrollment is down.
This is the sixth year that enrollment is down, so it was starting to decline
before the pandemic took hold. But the pandemic knocked a lot of high
schoolers and young adults off their college going plans.
So we hear a lot, David, about the learning loss in elementary schools and
high schools. I think another thing we really have to
be focused on is how many graduating seniors would have otherwise enrolled in
college who haven't and they haven't come back yet.
So this is concerning and how much of the cost of the whole thing, because you
saw that Wall Street Journal poll that said something like 56 percent of
Americans don't believe a college degree is worth the price.
Yeah, that I found those polling numbers really quite troubling.
So as you mentioned, a majority, a small majority, but a majority nonetheless, of
American adults now doubt that a college degree is worth it.
And that is just it. That's just emphatically not true.
So in general, people who graduate with a four year college degree will make
back the amount of money that if they made good decisions, that they would
have paid to get that degree. So a college degree is still an
excellent investment in one's economic future.
We know that college degree holders, four year college degree holders in
particular, have an easier time finding work.
They command much higher earnings when they do work.
Even in today's tight labor market. But as you mentioned, the price is
really it's hard to figure out. And so a lot of people actually think
getting a college degree would be more expensive than it would be for them in
particular. Melissa, you mentioned the relative lack
of transparency on exactly knowing what the cost is.
It's hard to do a cost benefit analysis if you don't what the cost side is,
whatever the benefits that is. Why is it so opaque?
They have their sticker price, their tuition price.
That's they're all in price. What they charge people who can pay full
price. That's also what they charge the
government for people who are paying on behalf of others.
But that's not what an individual student pays.
So about three quarters of students at four year institutions are getting some
form of aid. And so it's just really hard for
students to figure out until they've gone through the whole process of
applying for financial aid, filling out the FAFSA, how much any individual
school will take. There are a lot of efforts underway to
make that pricing more transparent so students can figure out earlier in the
process. But I think the real message that needs
to get out is that students should not be encouraged, discouraged from applying
to flagship schools, selective four year schools because they think they can't
afford it. They should go through the process.
Students who go to selective schools, who go to four year degrees, seeking
degree granting schools, they tend to have better outcomes.
Those schools often have more resources and are better able to serve their
students. So students should not be discouraged
from applying and they should take advantage of information that's out
there neck crossed calculators, information on student on school web
states to figure out what on average is a typical student paying to attend this
school. And by the way, people should make smart
choices like public schools charge a lot less than private schools.
So getting back to why a lot of people don't think a school is worth it or
pursuing a college degree is worth it. You know, you could get a lot of really
good deals if you're looking at public four year institutions as opposed to
private, especially if you're looking at in-state tuition.
Those net prices are much lower for typical students and people should take
that into account when they decide where to go.
So so typically economics, as I understand it, you understand it much
better than I do in supply and demand. If the supply starts to come down, it
might put some pressure on the system. If, in fact, we're getting less
enrollment, do you see any indication some of these institutions of higher
learning are saying, you know, we've got to get our act together.
We've got to be, for example, more transparent, more direct.
And by the way, even give a sense over the four years what's going to happen in
the out years, because one issue is how much you're going to raise it.
Once I get in unambiguously, the decline in the Roman is not an encouraging
trend. Whatever pressures it might put on some
schools that are losing students, I think they're declining enrollment is
really troubling because as we said, at a college degree really does grant an
earnings premium to students who attend and complete a four year degree.
So the earnings premium going college workers was rising tremendously in the
1980s and 1990s when demand for college level skills really took off.
And the supply of college educated workers didn't keep up.
Since 2000, that wage premium has stalled.
But importantly, it is still tremendously high.
So in a typical year, let's just take 20, 19 before the pandemic.
You know, someone with a four year college degree on average would make
about 88 percent more a year than a full time full year worker with just a high
school degree. When you talk with the earnings premium,
it surely must depend in part upon what you study and what the line of work you
go into. Right.
I mean, I can just imagine, for example, what the demands are right now for sort
of technology and some of the expertise in technology.
A very different point there were 30 years ago.
Absolutely. And this is a really important point.
So in general, even though I'm really emphasizing that a college degree is a
good investment in one's future, the fact of the matter is not all
institutions and not all majors deliver large earnings premiums.
And that, again, is something that students have to take into account and
have to make good decisions about where they're studying and what they're
studying. And that information, too, is now much
more readily available than it used to be in the past.
Students can look up what is the typical earning path for someone who pursues
this major, who attends this institution.
And again, make smart choices. So, Melissa, as you look at the decline
in enrollment, what about the demographics of it?
Is it affecting some people more than others?
Yeah. The decline enrollment has been much
larger among men than women, which is, you know, women are doing better overall
when it when it comes to young women getting college degrees.
And so this is worrisome. And the pandemic related decline was
especially pronounced among non-white men.
Again, this is another you know, this is another reason why these trends are
particularly worrisome. We think a college degree is a great
engine of upward mobility. And we worry if kids from lower income
homes, from nonwhite families in particular, are the ones who
disproportionately have their college going plans knocked off track.