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Q – Should they stay or should they go?
A – Unsure
For years, after my Student Success Project Presentation, called SuccesSession®, parents would come up to me and ask one of the following questions:
Q – What would success look like for my child?
A – A smile or even a grin on their face.
Q – What community service project looks best on my child’s resume?
A – Worry about padding their heart, not resume.
Q – Can you help my child find passion?
A – No, passion finds them.
Lately, there has been a question that should be no surprise to anyone.
Q – Does my kid need to go to college to be successful?
A – Let go of the idea that traditional college is the only way to win.
With that said, the author of “Shop Class as Soulcraft,” Matthew B. Crawford, puts it this way: “You can’t hammer a nail over the internet.”
THE WORTH
Across the country, more Americans than ever question the value of a college education. Just ask Peter Theil, who is trying harder than ever to get young people to skip college. Since 2010, Thiel, an early Facebook investor and a founder of PayPal Holdings, has offered to pay students $100,000 to drop out of school to start companies or nonprofits. Most call him nuts, but people are starting to listen as college credibility collapses.
The political turmoil that rocked universities over the past three months and sparked the resignations of two Ivy League presidents has landed like an unwelcome thud on institutions already struggling to maintain the trust of the American public. For three generations, the national aspiration to “college for all” shaped America’s economy and culture, as most high-school graduates took it for granted that they would earn a degree. That consensus is now collapsing in the face of massive student debt, underemployed degree-holders, and political intolerance on campus.
According to Gallup, Americans’ confidence in higher education fell from 57 percent to 36 percent in the past decade. A decline in undergraduate enrollment since 2011 has translated into three million fewer on-campus students.
Nearly half of parents say they would prefer not to send their children to a four-year college after high school, even if there were no obstacles, financial or otherwise. Two-thirds of high school students think they will be fine without college degrees.
THE REALITY
The pandemic drove home a sobering realization for a lot of middle-class American families: “College for all” is broken for most.
Arthur Levine, president emeritus of Columbia Teachers College and Author of “The Great Upheaval: Higher Education’s Past, Present and Uncertain Future,” compares this moment in post-secondary education to the seismic change that followed the Industrial Revolution. That 19th-century wave of disruption washed over schools designed to meet the needs of a sectarian, agricultural society. It transformed higher education into a sprawling system of community colleges, land-grant universities, and graduate schools.
The dilemma today’s high-school students face is that while a similarly massive economic disruption has arrived, new educational alternatives have not. “Whatever comes next,” Levine says of Generation Z, “It’s not going to come soon enough for them.”
So how did one of the crown jewels of American society squander so much confidence so quickly?
THE MODEL
If the pandemic marked the moment the “college for all” model finally cracked, 1965 marked its birth. As the baby boomers came of age, the federal government made loans available to any college-bound 18-year-old with a high-school diploma to maintain the most educated workforce in the world. High schools scrapped vocational education programs in favor of college preparatory classes.
For middle-class Americans, college made sense as long as a degree generated a large enough wage premium to make the rising investment cost worthwhile. As that premium became less consistent, the risks of going to college grew, and confidence in college as an institution declined.
In a recent study of 100 random first-year students enrolling in college today, 40 will not graduate. Of the remaining 60 that earn a degree in six years, 20 will end up chronically underemployed. In other words, for every five students who enroll in a four-year college, only two will graduate and find a job based on their degree.
THE CHOICE
A college education is among the most significant investments most Americans will make. Attending a public college costs about $36,000 a year, and the average time to get a degree is nearly five years. Tack on debt service for student loans, the opportunity cost of not working while in school, and the actual cost of college can easily pass $300,000—more than the median net worth of most families.
Q – So what is family to do?
A – Look for alternatives.
This column is by Ritchie Lucas, Founder/CEO of the non-profit The Student Success Project. He can be reached by email at ritchie@studentsuccessproject.org and on Facebook as The Student Success Project.
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