College enrollment crisis

Started by Sanman
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The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the world's population has passed 8 billion

The population will increase, but the birth rate is decreasing in most countries including the U.S. The answer to most of these problems will be immigration. The irony here is that student loans likely had a significant impact on decreasing birth rates to begin with, their greed will cause their own demise.
This doesn't really track, because we're seeing the same birth rate declines in countries like Germany, where college/university is free. They have the same, if not worse, concerns about not having enough young people to pay for the pension schemes, etc., and are trying to attract immigrants (despite having an immigration processing system stuck in the 1980s or so--you literally submit your application, they tell you not to contact them, and you just wait silently for 1-2 years with no updates or application tracking of any kind)
 
Yup, exorbitant housing prices, long work hours, for women there's also this expectation that they'll stay home and raise the children, not to mention in many cases also do things for their in-laws (that's also why a lot of people aren't getting married). At the same time, people also like their daughters-in-law to have prestigious degrees, so you're basically working your butt off to get a good job, just to become a stay-at-home mother. There's a drama that showed a lot of these issues, Doctor Cha, and it got HUGE ratings, probably because it was so relevant to its audience.
I've been wanting to watch this series. Netflix picked it up recently, so it is in my queue.
 
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FWIW, this enrollment crisis doesn't seem to be evenly geographically distributed, at least as of yet--institutions in the Northeast and Midwest definitely seem to be feeling it, as do expensive LACs without big prestige and well-funded endowments (the lack of substantial money in a school's endowment seems to be particularly big risk factor, as does smaller enrollment numbers to begin with). Most large R1s and hence most psych PhDs programs will likely be fine overall, at least based on current trends. Of course, there may be some exceptions, like WVU (which has just been a mess all around with their current president, sadly), but I predict we'll mostly see a lot of small LACs close and merge and some regional/directional bachelors- and masters-level state universities shrink and cut programs and faculty (closing state universities entirely is often political suicide, so state legislators tend to avoid it).
What did Gee do this time? He's a very nice man, but he is a MAGNET for drama wherever he goes.
 
This doesn't really track, because we're seeing the same birth rate declines in countries like Germany, where college/university is free. They have the same, if not worse, concerns about not having enough young people to pay for the pension schemes, etc., and are trying to attract immigrants (despite having an immigration processing system stuck in the 1980s or so--you literally submit your application, they tell you not to contact them, and you just wait silently for 1-2 years with no updates or application tracking of any kind)

As I said in a previous response, it is not only that but partly that. The bottom line is that if you want to the birth rate to increase, then you need to make young people less broke and institute more family friendly policies (subsidize child care, increase access to affordable housing, etc) or younger folks will choose to have fewer/no children.


https://www.reuters.com/world/births-slow-china-us-ex-laggard-germany-bucks-trend-2021-05-13/
 
As I said in a previous response, it is not only that but partly that. The bottom line is that if you want to the birth rate to increase, then you need to make young people less broke and institute more family friendly policies (subsidize child care, increase access to affordable housing, etc) or younger folks will choose to have fewer/no children.


https://www.reuters.com/world/births-slow-china-us-ex-laggard-germany-bucks-trend-2021-05-13/
Agree with that entirely--just saying that you can't pin the whole issue on student loans (in the context of Japan and Korea, I known that there's also been some discussion of toning down work cultures/work hour expectations to make having kids you actually see regularly more feasible).
 
Agree with that entirely--just saying that you can't pin the whole issue on student loans (in the context of Japan and Korea, I known that there's also been some discussion of toning down work cultures/work hour expectations to make having kids you actually see regularly more feasible).

Not the whole issue. However, the lack of focus on value and costs hurt their long-term viability and image significantly.