Do you know these stats? IHE article

[polly_mer]

https://insidehighered.com/blogs/higher-ed-gamma/higher-ed%E2%80%99s-dirty-little-secrets-0

[Hegemony]

"Less than 20 percent of colleges and universities admit less than 50 percent of applicants -- and just 46 percent admit less than 20 percent."

What?

[Vkw10]

"Less than 20 percent of colleges and universities admit less than 50 percent of applicants -- and just 46 percent admit less than 20 percent."

What?

What? Okay, let's try to re-state and make it easier to read:

A supermajority of institutions admit the majority of applicants. Almost half of institutions are highly selective and only admit a fifth of applicants.

Hmm, either I totally misunderstood or those percentages really don't make sense. I recommend sketching pie graphs with the actual data, then describing what you see to help write a clear sentence.

[polly_mer]

"Less than 20 percent of colleges and universities admit less than 50 percent of applicants -- and just 46 percent admit less than 20 percent."

What?

That second statistic has a typo of some sort in the article, as is being discussed everywhere I follow IHE discussions.  I don't think the right answer is 4.6 percent, but it is a very small number of elite institutions that are selective enough that only a small percentage of applicants get in.

The main point is that most institutions admit most applicants, which is not the impression one would get from the mass media.

[mythbuster]

I think they mean 46% of the 20%. So roughly 10% of all of them.

[spork]

[. . .]

The main point is that most institutions admit most applicants, which is not the impression one would get from the mass media.

I'd say draw rate is the statistic to look at, and for many private, non-profit four-year schools, the draw rate collapsed after the 2008 recession, sometimes by more than 50%.

Those interested in recent admissions data can go to https://www.highereddatastories.com/2019/11/2018-admissions-data.html. A very large percentage of schools admit very large percentages of applicants.

[marshwiggle]

I think they mean 46% of the 20%. So roughly 10% of all of them.

Here's another quotation that I think uses the same kind of confusing wording:

Prior to the pandemic, 43 percent of college graduates were underemployed in their first job; two-thirds remained in jobs that don't require college degrees five years later.

So I think it means "2/3 (of the 43%)", or about 30%, "remained in jobs that don't require college degrees five years later."

[polly_mer]

I think they mean 46% of the 20%. So roughly 10% of all of them.

Here's another quotation that I think uses the same kind of confusing wording:

Prior to the pandemic, 43 percent of college graduates were underemployed in their first job; two-thirds remained in jobs that don't require college degrees five years later.

So I think it means "2/3 (of the 43%)", or about 30%, "remained in jobs that don't require college degrees five years later."

Yes.

For those who have been following along all summer, the author of this piece is the history professor who was wrong on nursing school and Mr. Obvious on how to incorporate career services in curriculum.  I was pleased to see that he had something worth reading, but my quick skim didn't pick up all the details that the editors also didn't pick up.

[marshwiggle]

Some interesting stats from a study referenced in the article:

Responses from millenials (24-39), to the question-

Why Do College Grads Want to Change Their Majors?

• I want better/more job opportunities (30.68%)
• I want better compensation or benefits (18.34%)
• I want to learn in-demand skills (18.16%)
• I am personally dissatisfied with or stress/burned out in my current career (13.93%)
• I want to pursue my passion (14.08%)
• Other (4.82%)

So over 80% of millenials would change their major for career reasons. Less than 20% would change for "passion" or something else.

When does that start to sound like what people want is "job training"?

[Vkw10]

Advice to my students: If people have to draw graphs to understand a sentence with statistics, you need to both re-write and supply a graph.

[Hegemony]

I don't understand why people age 24-39 are asked why they want to change their major — are these people in college? Or do they mean they wish they had changed their major back when they were in college? Or they think current majors change for these reasons?

[polly_mer]

I don't understand why people age 24-39 are asked why they want to change their major — are these people in college? Or do they mean they wish they had changed their major back when they were in college? Or they think current majors change for these reasons?

They ask people who graduated and are now out in the world using their college educations if those folks are satisfied with the outcomes and what they'd change if those folks knew then what they know now.

In your words, these are the reasons folks wish they had changed their majors while still in college now that they are out of college, even 10+ years (i.e., should be well past that first job and into the spot where the non-job-training parts of college are supposed to kick in).