College enrollment down

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:College prof here. College enrollments are set to drop off a cliff, but the elite schools will be just as hard to get in as ever. It's already a great time to get deals on lower-profile colleges, though. Your kid can get a fantastic and cheap(er) education at a smaller SLAC, and you can bargain for tuition breaks, too. Just apply to several and then pit them against each other. They are so desperate right now because they are tuition-dependent. Ask me how I know...

https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-shrinking-of-higher-ed

This is behind the paywall so I can't read it. But those "smaller SLACs with a tuition break" - what type of college are we talking about? I presume this is not the Amherst / Williams / Pomona highly selective college but is it a place you'd actually want your kid to attend?

Seriously? Folks roll their eyes when they hear of the "no name" SLAC I attended then occasionally say "I've never heard of that." From that college, which offered merit for this working class kid, I attended an Ivy for grad. No one there seemed super focused on where anyone went to undergrad.

Frankly, it is a little sad when someone cleaves onto their UG Ivy or Little Ivy degree decades later. You worked, had a family, etc, but you still need to invoke that UG degree for status.

I went to a school that has been T30 for the past 25+ years and still gets a lot of “never heard of it”

People truly aren’t too bright out there in the real world

You don't care what some average not-too-bright person in the real world thinks about it, you care what a hiring manager for a prestigious / rewarding / upwardly mobile job thinks about it. That hiring manager will have heard of Williams or Amherst, but if that manager has not heard of Bates or Carleton then that decision isn't going to go well if your kid went there and is competing against the "brand name" grads.

So hiring managers care more about whether an applicant went to a brand name school than an individual's actual qualifications and personal qualities? Uh, okay.

A hiring manager for a prestigious / rewarding / upwardly mobile job absolutely does. They regard school pedigree as a proxy for qualifications and personal qualities. And let's face it, a new grad doesn't have a lot of "actual qualifications" they can demonstrate, so it's not completely wrong to sort by school prestige.

The best hiring managers know how to recognize actual talent, rather than rely on school reputations.

Well so long as you can guarantee that your kid will ALWAYS be evaluated by THE BEST HIRING MANAGERS, no worries, go ahead and send him to Arizona State.

One of the most successful people I know in NYC got his BA from...Arizona State.

I know a few successful people who have degrees from colleges that are basically open admission. I know a lot more successful people who have degrees from schools that are typically considered 'good'

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:College prof here. College enrollments are set to drop off a cliff, but the elite schools will be just as hard to get in as ever. It's already a great time to get deals on lower-profile colleges, though. Your kid can get a fantastic and cheap(er) education at a smaller SLAC, and you can bargain for tuition breaks, too. Just apply to several and then pit them against each other. They are so desperate right now because they are tuition-dependent. Ask me how I know...

https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-shrinking-of-higher-ed

This is behind the paywall so I can't read it. But those "smaller SLACs with a tuition break" - what type of college are we talking about? I presume this is not the Amherst / Williams / Pomona highly selective college but is it a place you'd actually want your kid to attend?

Seriously? Folks roll their eyes when they hear of the "no name" SLAC I attended then occasionally say "I've never heard of that." From that college, which offered merit for this working class kid, I attended an Ivy for grad. No one there seemed super focused on where anyone went to undergrad.

Frankly, it is a little sad when someone cleaves onto their UG Ivy or Little Ivy degree decades later. You worked, had a family, etc, but you still need to invoke that UG degree for status.

I went to a school that has been T30 for the past 25+ years and still gets a lot of “never heard of it”

People truly aren’t too bright out there in the real world

You don't care what some average not-too-bright person in the real world thinks about it, you care what a hiring manager for a prestigious / rewarding / upwardly mobile job thinks about it. That hiring manager will have heard of Williams or Amherst, but if that manager has not heard of Bates or Carleton then that decision isn't going to go well if your kid went there and is competing against the "brand name" grads.

So hiring managers care more about whether an applicant went to a brand name school than an individual's actual qualifications and personal qualities? Uh, okay.

A hiring manager for a prestigious / rewarding / upwardly mobile job absolutely does. They regard school pedigree as a proxy for qualifications and personal qualities. And let's face it, a new grad doesn't have a lot of "actual qualifications" they can demonstrate, so it's not completely wrong to sort by school prestige.

The best hiring managers know how to recognize actual talent, rather than rely on school reputations.

Well so long as you can guarantee that your kid will ALWAYS be evaluated by THE BEST HIRING MANAGERS, no worries, go ahead and send him to Arizona State.

One of the most successful people I know in NYC got his BA from...Arizona State.

I know a few successful people who have degrees from colleges that are basically open admission. I know a lot more successful people who have degrees from schools that are typically considered 'good'

Interesting. I've lived in three major cities on the East coast and each one is a mix. There are successful folks who attended "good" schools and others who attended a range of lesser known state flagships and directional universities for undergrad. I also know folks whom I wouldn't necessarily call successful - gainfully employed but probably not at the levels and/or in the positions they probably thought they would hold when attending their good schools. Sometimes the traits that enabled them to get admitted to a selective school may hinder their success in the work place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:College prof here. College enrollments are set to drop off a cliff, but the elite schools will be just as hard to get in as ever. It's already a great time to get deals on lower-profile colleges, though. Your kid can get a fantastic and cheap(er) education at a smaller SLAC, and you can bargain for tuition breaks, too. Just apply to several and then pit them against each other. They are so desperate right now because they are tuition-dependent. Ask me how I know...

https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-shrinking-of-higher-ed

This is behind the paywall so I can't read it. But those "smaller SLACs with a tuition break" - what type of college are we talking about? I presume this is not the Amherst / Williams / Pomona highly selective college but is it a place you'd actually want your kid to attend?

Seriously? Folks roll their eyes when they hear of the "no name" SLAC I attended then occasionally say "I've never heard of that." From that college, which offered merit for this working class kid, I attended an Ivy for grad. No one there seemed super focused on where anyone went to undergrad.

Frankly, it is a little sad when someone cleaves onto their UG Ivy or Little Ivy degree decades later. You worked, had a family, etc, but you still need to invoke that UG degree for status.

I went to a school that has been T30 for the past 25+ years and still gets a lot of “never heard of it”

People truly aren’t too bright out there in the real world

You don't care what some average not-too-bright person in the real world thinks about it, you care what a hiring manager for a prestigious / rewarding / upwardly mobile job thinks about it. That hiring manager will have heard of Williams or Amherst, but if that manager has not heard of Bates or Carleton then that decision isn't going to go well if your kid went there and is competing against the "brand name" grads.

So hiring managers care more about whether an applicant went to a brand name school than an individual's actual qualifications and personal qualities? Uh, okay.

A hiring manager for a prestigious / rewarding / upwardly mobile job absolutely does. They regard school pedigree as a proxy for qualifications and personal qualities. And let's face it, a new grad doesn't have a lot of "actual qualifications" they can demonstrate, so it's not completely wrong to sort by school prestige.

The best hiring managers know how to recognize actual talent, rather than rely on school reputations.

Well so long as you can guarantee that your kid will ALWAYS be evaluated by THE BEST HIRING MANAGERS, no worries, go ahead and send him to Arizona State.

One of the most successful people I know in NYC got his BA from...Arizona State.

I know a few successful people who have degrees from colleges that are basically open admission. I know a lot more successful people who have degrees from schools that are typically considered 'good'

Interesting. I've lived in three major cities on the East coast and each one is a mix. There are successful folks who attended "good" schools and others who attended a range of lesser known state flagships and directional universities for undergrad. I also know folks whom I wouldn't necessarily call successful - gainfully employed but probably not at the levels and/or in the positions they probably thought they would hold when attending their good schools. Sometimes the traits that enabled them to get admitted to a selective school may hinder their success in the work place.

Pull up the website of any company you can think of and look at the bio page for the executive team. Which is more likely, an Ivy league BA/BS or Central Florida? Statistically, the numbers should be similar considering Central Florida has 61,000 undergrads. For some reason, they aren't

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College as it has been pushed the last 20 years is a scam.

Yes, so much debt in return for so little to show for it. But people don't want to believe that any more than buyers wanted to hear that before the 2008 housing market bubble and collapse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College as it has been pushed the last 20 years is a scam.

Yes, so much debt in return for so little to show for it. But people don't want to believe that any more than buyers wanted to hear that before the 2008 housing market bubble and collapse.

Probably because college is still a prerequisite for most careers that people actually want. It's more of a gamble than it ever has been, but it's still a necessary gamble

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College as it has been pushed the last 20 years is a scam.

Yes, so much debt in return for so little to show for it. But people don't want to believe that any more than buyers wanted to hear that before the 2008 housing market bubble and collapse.

Probably because college is still a prerequisite for most careers that people actually want. It's more of a gamble than it ever has been, but it's still a necessary gamble

It’s not a gamble at all. College is the right place for many maybe most but any debt for college is a no-no. That is the big lie. You cannot take debt for college. It changes the mix of options open to you.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:10:10 again. It also feels like I'm being overly critical. All these schools offered interesting courses and had beautifully laid out campuses (no A/C in a lot of dorms though). I can't put my finger on WHY none of us were enthused. For us parents, perhaps it was the price sinking in. We'd rather pay just for the courses, you know? Seems like the manicured grounds, athletic complex and all the extras are weighing down the budget here DS was looking for small classes and a particular program, and he'd rather go to a less selective school that has that program than these beautiful SLACs, even if the classes are bigger. His preferred school is *even more expensive*, but since it's less selective, he's hoping for merit aid and the school did say that they offered some at his range of stats.


We really should be moving towards a European-style, subsidized post-secondary education, with just the academics, no frills. That way, more people will have the opportunity to receive a better education, and we might avoid election pitfalls such as our ongoing political saga.

As someone with one of these European educations you idealize, I really hope the US doesn’t go that way. I think it would be a terrible loss.

Most of the parents who wish for the “European” system don’t realize that, if their kid doesn’t qualify for generous merit aid in the US, they wouldn’t even be on the college track in most “European” countries.

Yes---Europe begins "tracking students" into 3 or 4 tracks around the Middle school level. If you don't make the cut at age 10/11, your kid simply will not be an engineer/STEM, as they won't have the background courses to succeed at that or even get a slot in a university. I'd prefer that my kids have the option to select what they want to major in/study for a career themselves when they are 18-20, not at age 10

In the US, kids are tracked from birth. If your kid doesn't have parents who can afford college, then they either gets decades of debt or no college

BS. If the student is bright and the parents truly can’t afford college, all of the top schools have generous financial aid. Any of the kids that are bright enough to go to university in Germany or France would get generous financial aid in the US if they needed it and merit aid if they didn’t need it and wanted to attend a school at the 30+ level in the rankings. The difference is that a not so stellar kid can choose to go to college in the US if their parents can afford it or they want to take out loans. That’s not an option in the European system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College prof here. College enrollments are set to drop off a cliff, but the elite schools will be just as hard to get in as ever. It's already a great time to get deals on lower-profile colleges, though. Your kid can get a fantastic and cheap(er) education at a smaller SLAC, and you can bargain for tuition breaks, too. Just apply to several and then pit them against each other. They are so desperate right now because they are tuition-dependent. Ask me how I know...

https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-shrinking-of-higher-ed

This is behind the paywall so I can't read it. But those "smaller SLACs with a tuition break" - what type of college are we talking about? I presume this is not the Amherst / Williams / Pomona highly selective college but is it a place you'd actually want your kid to attend?

Seriously? Folks roll their eyes when they hear of the "no name" SLAC I attended then occasionally say "I've never heard of that." From that college, which offered merit for this working class kid, I attended an Ivy for grad. No one there seemed super focused on where anyone went to undergrad.

Frankly, it is a little sad when someone cleaves onto their UG Ivy or Little Ivy degree decades later. You worked, had a family, etc, but you still need to invoke that UG degree for status.

I went to a school that has been T30 for the past 25+ years and still gets a lot of “never heard of it”

People truly aren’t too bright out there in the real world

You don't care what some average not-too-bright person in the real world thinks about it, you care what a hiring manager for a prestigious / rewarding / upwardly mobile job thinks about it. That hiring manager will have heard of Williams or Amherst, but if that manager has not heard of Bates or Carleton then that decision isn't going to go well if your kid went there and is competing against the "brand name" grads.

So hiring managers care more about whether an applicant went to a brand name school than an individual's actual qualifications and personal qualities? Uh, okay.

A hiring manager for a prestigious / rewarding / upwardly mobile job absolutely does. They regard school pedigree as a proxy for qualifications and personal qualities. And let's face it, a new grad doesn't have a lot of "actual qualifications" they can demonstrate, so it's not completely wrong to sort by school prestige.

The best hiring managers know how to recognize actual talent, rather than rely on school reputations.

Well so long as you can guarantee that your kid will ALWAYS be evaluated by THE BEST HIRING MANAGERS, no worries, go ahead and send him to Arizona State.

One of the most successful people I know in NYC got his BA from...Arizona State.

I know a few successful people who have degrees from colleges that are basically open admission. I know a lot more successful people who have degrees from schools that are typically considered 'good'

Interesting. I've lived in three major cities on the East coast and each one is a mix. There are successful folks who attended "good" schools and others who attended a range of lesser known state flagships and directional universities for undergrad. I also know folks whom I wouldn't necessarily call successful - gainfully employed but probably not at the levels and/or in the positions they probably thought they would hold when attending their good schools. Sometimes the traits that enabled them to get admitted to a selective school may hinder their success in the work place.

Pull up the website of any company you can think of and look at the bio page for the executive team. Which is more likely, an Ivy league BA/BS or Central Florida? Statistically, the numbers should be similar considering Central Florida has 61,000 undergrads. For some reason, they aren't

DP. This is a bad example because Central Florida wasn’t even founded until the ‘60’s, and most CEOs are older. Try Texas A&M.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/where-the-top-fortune-500-ceos-attended-college

While no individual school can lay claim to launching the careers of these CEOs, Boston College and Texas A&M University tie with the University of Pennsylvania in producing four CEOs in charge of top 100 companies on the Fortune 500 list, the most of any other colleges. Graduates of Boston College head up CVS Health, American International Group Inc., Abbott and The TJX Companies Inc.; Texas A&M alumni lead Exxon Mobil Corp., Cigna, Phillips 66 and Humana; and University of Pennsylvania grads helm Comcast, Oracle, Travelers and Tesla Inc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College prof here. College enrollments are set to drop off a cliff, but the elite schools will be just as hard to get in as ever. It's already a great time to get deals on lower-profile colleges, though. Your kid can get a fantastic and cheap(er) education at a smaller SLAC, and you can bargain for tuition breaks, too. Just apply to several and then pit them against each other. They are so desperate right now because they are tuition-dependent. Ask me how I know...

https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-shrinking-of-higher-ed

This is behind the paywall so I can't read it. But those "smaller SLACs with a tuition break" - what type of college are we talking about? I presume this is not the Amherst / Williams / Pomona highly selective college but is it a place you'd actually want your kid to attend?

Seriously? Folks roll their eyes when they hear of the "no name" SLAC I attended then occasionally say "I've never heard of that." From that college, which offered merit for this working class kid, I attended an Ivy for grad. No one there seemed super focused on where anyone went to undergrad.

Frankly, it is a little sad when someone cleaves onto their UG Ivy or Little Ivy degree decades later. You worked, had a family, etc, but you still need to invoke that UG degree for status.

I went to a school that has been T30 for the past 25+ years and still gets a lot of “never heard of it”

People truly aren’t too bright out there in the real world

You don't care what some average not-too-bright person in the real world thinks about it, you care what a hiring manager for a prestigious / rewarding / upwardly mobile job thinks about it. That hiring manager will have heard of Williams or Amherst, but if that manager has not heard of Bates or Carleton then that decision isn't going to go well if your kid went there and is competing against the "brand name" grads.

So hiring managers care more about whether an applicant went to a brand name school than an individual's actual qualifications and personal qualities? Uh, okay.

A hiring manager for a prestigious / rewarding / upwardly mobile job absolutely does. They regard school pedigree as a proxy for qualifications and personal qualities. And let's face it, a new grad doesn't have a lot of "actual qualifications" they can demonstrate, so it's not completely wrong to sort by school prestige.

The best hiring managers know how to recognize actual talent, rather than rely on school reputations.

Well so long as you can guarantee that your kid will ALWAYS be evaluated by THE BEST HIRING MANAGERS, no worries, go ahead and send him to Arizona State.

One of the most successful people I know in NYC got his BA from...Arizona State.

I know a few successful people who have degrees from colleges that are basically open admission. I know a lot more successful people who have degrees from schools that are typically considered 'good'

Interesting. I've lived in three major cities on the East coast and each one is a mix. There are successful folks who attended "good" schools and others who attended a range of lesser known state flagships and directional universities for undergrad. I also know folks whom I wouldn't necessarily call successful - gainfully employed but probably not at the levels and/or in the positions they probably thought they would hold when attending their good schools. Sometimes the traits that enabled them to get admitted to a selective school may hinder their success in the work place.

Pull up the website of any company you can think of and look at the bio page for the executive team. Which is more likely, an Ivy league BA/BS or Central Florida? Statistically, the numbers should be similar considering Central Florida has 61,000 undergrads. For some reason, they aren't

DP. This is a bad example because Central Florida wasn’t even founded until the ‘60’s, and most CEOs are older. Try Texas A&M.

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/where-the-top-fortune-500-ceos-attended-college

While no individual school can lay claim to launching the careers of these CEOs, Boston College and Texas A&M University tie with the University of Pennsylvania in producing four CEOs in charge of top 100 companies on the Fortune 500 list, the most of any other colleges. Graduates of Boston College head up CVS Health, American International Group Inc., Abbott and The TJX Companies Inc.; Texas A&M alumni lead Exxon Mobil Corp., Cigna, Phillips 66 and Humana; and University of Pennsylvania grads helm Comcast, Oracle, Travelers and Tesla Inc.

Texas A&M has competitive admissions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:10:10 again. It also feels like I'm being overly critical. All these schools offered interesting courses and had beautifully laid out campuses (no A/C in a lot of dorms though). I can't put my finger on WHY none of us were enthused. For us parents, perhaps it was the price sinking in. We'd rather pay just for the courses, you know? Seems like the manicured grounds, athletic complex and all the extras are weighing down the budget here DS was looking for small classes and a particular program, and he'd rather go to a less selective school that has that program than these beautiful SLACs, even if the classes are bigger. His preferred school is *even more expensive*, but since it's less selective, he's hoping for merit aid and the school did say that they offered some at his range of stats.


We really should be moving towards a European-style, subsidized post-secondary education, with just the academics, no frills. That way, more people will have the opportunity to receive a better education, and we might avoid election pitfalls such as our ongoing political saga.

As someone with one of these European educations you idealize, I really hope the US doesn’t go that way. I think it would be a terrible loss.

Most of the parents who wish for the “European” system don’t realize that, if their kid doesn’t qualify for generous merit aid in the US, they wouldn’t even be on the college track in most “European” countries.

Yes---Europe begins "tracking students" into 3 or 4 tracks around the Middle school level. If you don't make the cut at age 10/11, your kid simply will not be an engineer/STEM, as they won't have the background courses to succeed at that or even get a slot in a university. I'd prefer that my kids have the option to select what they want to major in/study for a career themselves when they are 18-20, not at age 10

In the US, kids are tracked from birth. If your kid doesn't have parents who can afford college, then they either gets decades of debt or no college

Side effects of your family economic status is everywhere. That's not what I was pointing out.

However, in the USA, your kid is not put on a College STEM track, College Humanities, no college at age 10. Even a kid who does NOT take calculus in HS (which is on grade level to end with Pre-calc) can still go onto college and be an engineer. Even a poor student can do this. In Europe (and much of asia) kids are set on their track at age 10/11.

The cost of college is very different. And kids can attend college without much debt. Do a CC for first 2 years while living at home, even better, do running start in HS (if you can manage it) and get an AA for free when you graduate HS.
That CC can be funded with a part time job (around me it $5K/year for CC plus books and min wage is $15, so very easy to earn $5K+).
Then transfer to 4 year university for the last 2-2.5 years of your degree. All in is $25K/year. Kid can earn $10-15K easily each year and if they were smart, they saved some during the 2 years of CC. Take loans for rest and you only have ~$25K in debt. If parents contribute even $4-5K/year you minimize debt more.

So yes, your kid may not go to a T20 school, but there are ways to get a degree without major debt.


CC can be funded with a part time job (around me it $5K/year for CC plus books and min wage is $15, so very easy to earn $5K+).
Then transfer to 4 year university for the last 2-2.5 years of your degree. All in is $25K/year. Kid can earn $10-15K easily each year and if they were smart, they saved some during the 2 years of CC. Take loans for rest and you only have ~$25K in debt. If parents contribute even $4-5K/year you minimize debt more.

This. But kids and parents alike are brainwashed by the last several decades of U.S. News and World Report ratings-chasing games and think they all need brand name degrees and campuses with resort-level lifestyle. And they are willing to go deeply into debt in order to have it.