Thursday, May 26, 2022

College enrollment down

“While elite colleges and universities have continued to attract an overflow of applicants, the pandemic has been devastating for many public universities, particularly community colleges, which serve many low- and moderate-income students”: “College Enrollment Drops, Even as the Pandemic’s Effects Ebb” (The New York Times).

What would I do if I were a high-school kid thinking about college? I’d go, for sure. I think I’d want to study user-interface design. My son thinks I’d be good at that.

comments: 6

Anonymous said...

Cool thing to study!

Here in Kansas we are experiencing the same drop but the Board of Regents have hired a MD firm to review all 6 major universities here:

https://littleapplepost.com/posts/6c70f886-28f1-43da-a17a-805a50e1ca6b

The Bd claims that 1500 degree programs are too many. Apparently this same company did it for Vermont.

But here's the thing they never talk about: all of the middle level management that the schools have hired.

Kirsten

Michael Leddy said...

In my regional state system, there used to be a magic number of nineteen students for a given major to remain on the books. So Foreign Languages made each language part of one overall major. And that did the trick.

Don’t get me started on the proliferation of administrative positions. There always seems to be money for another assistant coordinator of something. Tenure-track teaching positions, not so much.

Slywy said...

Instead of loan forgiveness (or in addition to, since I don't know much about it), there should be something where a university has to commit to a non-faculty staff ratio per student of x (excluding essential personnel like facilities) to get any federal funding. I bet those middle management positions would dry up, and maybe tuition would come down accordingly, reducing the loan burden.

Just a thought. I'd like to see an actuary or similar figure it out.

Michael Leddy said...

A modest proposal. : )

And how about redirecting that money to teaching positions?

Slywy said...

I'm down with that. As long as they're teaching positions that don't require the teacher to be security too.

Michael Leddy said...

General Kelly and his friends will take care of it. (Remember that lunatic suggestion?)