This article involves an analysis of statistical data collected about private and public colleges in the US. There is a very disturbing trend; enrollment is falling and the colleges' revenues are going down. "The Moody’s survey included 165 nonprofit private universities and 127 four-year public universities." We have been talking about stats and sampling and with that in mind, to what extent can be view this stat as a representative of what is really happening in higher education?
Has anyone been seeing or hearing about this trend? What impact does this have on you as a current college student?
I am skeptical when it comes to most surveys. This one is no different. I haven't really heard about this trend minus K's annual tuition increase. I don't think this is going to really impact me as a student because if this is actually a problem I will probably be graduated by the time it's a major issue. Also, the article did mention that elite private schools, which I consider K to be one of, are less effected by the current trend.
ReplyDeleteI think that this situation is a cause of inflation and how it is becoming more and more expensive to get a higher education. I know that my brother and sister went to colleges around the same caliber as K and they still payed less then what K costs without scholarships.
ReplyDeleteI did recently read an article about the trends of small liberal arts schools struggling with enrollment based on the fact that prospective students are weary about the value of a bachelor of arts degree against the more specialized degrees from other universities. It was interesting because they used Adrian (I think it was Adrian... might have been Albion) and then spoke about how liberal arts schools are trying to counter this movement. I have felt some of those efforts from K with the sports and international stress and it just reminds me that a big part of a college's focus is getting new students and "selling to a consumer." So just based on this article and what I know about K I would say that smaller schools need to be proactive about possible trends to stay competitive and afloat or they could easily get swallowed up. Especially with factors like what Rohitha said about inflation and the substitute educations people can get other than K.
ReplyDeleteAlthough a college degree is still generally a good investment, wages for college graduates have been stagnating and falling just as they have for high school graduates. That means revenues are having to come down to earth eventually. I think this will provide an opening for online education to start revolutionizing higher education through some kind of hybrid teacher/online model. We can already see this happening in the California University system, and it's hard to ignore the explosion of Massively Open Online Courses at websites like Coursera. Check out this link from Alex Tabarrok.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Philip--and Alex Tabarrok for that matter. There was another TED talk that I couldn't manage to find a link to where someone spoke of quite similar ends. He felt that both online and "best of the best" teaching methods can also work for younger students. This is to say that grade school students may watch a lesson led by the leading expert in a field, rather than having many teachers with mediocre understandings of a subject attempt to teach that same lesson. The teachers can then facilitate the discussions of the expert's lesson that follow, not teach a poorly done lesson.
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DeleteYes, I have heard about this trend from my father. Personally, it doesn't have an affect on me as my family has the means to pay for college. However, this trend and article makes me concerned about the future. Education is necessary and with people not being able to receive higher education because of money issues, what does that mean for the future?
ReplyDeleteI believe that this trend will continue to get worse as tuition for colleges continues to increase. At this time people cannot afford tuition as it is. With this being said I am not surprised that "elite private schools" are somewhat unaffected because many times these schools have more access to funding and students that can afford the tuition thus keeping tuition low and enrollment high.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't really heard much about this topic until I read the article, but I think it makes perfect sense. Many of my friends who are trying to support themselves through college at public universities are struggling with the fact of how they are going to be able to pay off all these student loans that they are racking up. Their tuition continues to increase each year making it more difficult for them to stay in school. I don't really think this will affect me, but I think it will definitely affect students in the future deciding between a public or private school basing their decision on price.
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