New Data Reveals Just How Deep The College Crisis Goes

[LevelUP]

New Data Reveals Just How Deep The College Crisis Goes

https://www.forbes.com/sites/markcperna/...ge-crisis/

[Ares]

Colleges set themselves up to fail by living in an educational bubble that does not represent the real world.

[Kal Di]

Article Snippets with My Commentary

Higher education in America is struggling. Colleges are closing at the rate of approximately one per week, most often due to financial collapse. 75% of Generation Z say there are other ways of getting a good education than going to college.

More students will incur significant, unexpected costs because their college closes and their transfer college will not accept all or almost all their transfer credits. As a result, they probably will have to spend additional semesters at their new college. Conversely, the transfer college can accept all their credits, but their cost of tuition per credit is significantly more than the prior college.    

Historically, institutions of higher learning have been slow to pivot their offerings to meet current workforce needs. 

Unfortunately, the minority of higher education institutions who pivot their offerings to meet current workforce needs are not the most affordable for the average student. 

Who loses when a college fails to deliver job-ready graduates? Everyone.

The college becomes irrelevant and may eventually have to close its doors. The graduate struggles in the working world—maybe succeeding someday, maybe not. Many end up chronically underemployed.

Most colleges are not doing enough. They care more about growth than customer satisfaction. When many graduates from particular colleges fail to demonstrate preparation for their intended jobs, those colleges develop a bad reputation. While it is good for those colleges to cease operations, the graduates still suffer tremendously. 

Most recent college graduates who participated in the [HULT International Business School] study had serious complaints about their college education:

• 77%: ‘I learned more in 6 months at my job than in my entire 4-year education’
  
  
• 87%: ‘I received better job training from my employer than I did from my undergraduate education’
  
  
• 94%: ‘I have regrets about my degree’
  

A 4-year college degree program is long and often expensive. As noted in the study, many students did not believe that the time investment was worth it. 

In fact, the outlook on a fresh-from-school hire is so bleak that 45% of hiring managers would rather bring in a freelancer, 45% would recruit a retired former employee, 37% would have a robot/AI do the job and 30% would even leave the position unfilled.

A college degree still has value, but its economic value cannot be appreciated if students graduate with overwhelming student loan debt. A cheap college degree (whether government or independently accredited, CHEA approved, state approved, or state licensed) is the more sensible solution. Depending on your major, government accreditation may not be as important if you intend to only seek employment in the private sector. 

This degree forum shares many good options. Many people can complete their undergraduate or graduate studies in about half of the time and at half of the cost if they are open-minded to different colleges and are realistic about their career intentions.  


Overall, there is a countless number of people on this forum (including myself) who shared success stories from taking a non-traditional path to graduate with their degree(s). 

Why take a risk by paying a ridiculous price for a college degree that has the potential to yield you a negative return on your time and/or cost investment? Why not pay the lowest price possible to improve your chances of a positive return on your time and/or cost investment?