So, is the US higher education sector going to continue to decline?

[ciao_yall]

Hi all,

Yes, I've read all the articles.

So, do we see, feel, believe that demographic declines will continue to lead to a decline in demand, thus need for institutions of higher education of all sorts?

Will colleges continue to compete for a shrinking pool? Or is there a significant untapped market that actually can be brought in to be the next generation of nurses, auto techs, and first generation college graduates?

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

So, do we see, feel, believe that demographic declines will continue to lead to a decline in demand, thus need for institutions of higher education of all sorts?

No, as long as "all sorts" truly means all sorts.

Or is there a significant untapped market that actually can be brought in to be the next generation of nurses, auto techs, and first generation college graduates?

Yes. But the untapped portion
- likely prefers part-time study
- is much less lucrative than traditional students (less affluent/requires more academic support/unlikely to contribute much to auxiliary revenue)
- unlikely to move to study in a SLAC in a picturesque rustic setting

[lightning]

Hi all,

Yes, I've read all the articles.

So, do we see, feel, believe that demographic declines will continue to lead to a decline in demand, thus need for institutions of higher education of all sorts?

Will colleges continue to compete for a shrinking pool? Or is there a significant untapped market that actually can be brought in to be the next generation of nurses, auto techs, and first generation college graduates?

the non-elite sLACs are hosed because people won't attend them. The ones with small endowments (< $80 million), are especially vulnerable. I'm sure we will see more of these sLACs on the Dire list. The thing about a lot of the colleges on that Dire list, is that many of us had not heard about them until they got on the list. That says something right there about the viability of those non-selective sLACs.

The vanilla public universities with a meh reputation, who are situated too close to other vanilla public universities with a meh reputation and whose offerings overlap with each other, are also probably hosed, although they probably won't disappear. They will just be fundamentally changed. These would be places like the public regional universities in Pennsylvania that don't have Penn State in their name or regional publics in Ohio.

Even with the state dis-investment in public higher education, the R1s will be fine, although states with smaller populations with two R1s (like the state of Kansas for example), will feel more stress.

It's the large private research-oriented universities that I'm curious about. They will probably do just fine.

Overall, however, I don't see an apocalypse. The sad sack stories get all the attention, and sadly, too many members of the fora, the CHE readers, and insidehighered readers, for some reason or another*, prefer to focus on the failures in our industry, as opposed to the institutions that have been quietly humming along with minimal drama.

* My theory is a lot of people who have left the higher ed industry or could never break into it in the first place, harbor bitterness and resentment, and get a little satisfaction in thinking that the well is being poisoned for the rest of us who still drink from the well and are doing OK. Yeah, the water tastes funny, but it's not killing us.

[Durchlässigkeitsbeiwert]

Side note:
Changes in the immigration policy can counter demographic trends for many lower-tier traditional institutions.
Pre-covid situation with OPT and H1B visas significantly limited opportunities for foreign students to stay in the country after graduation. In contrast, getting an undergraduate degree (or course-based masters) in Australia or Canada opens a direct pathway to a permanent residency (green card equivalent) there. This difference is one of underappreciated factors contributing to the decline in the international students' enrollment.

[marshwiggle]

So, do we see, feel, believe that demographic declines will continue to lead to a decline in demand, thus need for institutions of higher education of all sorts?

Talking about the decline in higher education is a bit like talking about the decline in marriage.

At one time, marriage was primarily a religious matter, and it conferred respectability and community support of the people engaging in it. As the stigma around people living together, and even having children, outside of marriage declined, and as legal changes happened to divide assets from breakups of unmarried people, (a.k.a. "palimony"), the primacy of religion in marriage also declined. So while there are lots of people choose not to marry, there are now completely non-religious marriages, and marriages for all kinds of reasons. (In the extreme case, it's an opportunity to try and get a lot of stuff.)

In a similar way, there was a time when higher education conferred social status, among other things. But as society has attempted to attach less stigma to socioeconomic status, the value of higher education for that purpose has also declined. So the value of higher education has to be more practical to the individual. Thus the shift is to education as a means to an end, rather than something for its own sake to make a person seem cultured.

This is why the places most in decline are those offering the "box-checking" education without clear extrinsic (e.g. employment) value. There will always be lots of need for doctors, engineers, etc. and so higher education with clear career value is not going anywhere.

[writingprof]

Side note:
Changes in the immigration policy can counter demographic trends for many lower-tier traditional institutions.
Pre-covid situation with OPT and H1B visas significantly limited opportunities for foreign students to stay in the country after graduation. In contrast, getting an undergraduate degree (or course-based masters) in Australia or Canada opens a direct pathway to a permanent residency (green card equivalent) there. This difference is one of underappreciated factors contributing to the decline in the international students' enrollment.

Yep. This is why I still have a job.

[polly_mer]

* My theory is a lot of people who have left the higher ed industry or could never break into it in the first place, harbor bitterness and resentment, and get a little satisfaction in thinking that the well is being poisoned for the rest of us who still drink from the well and are doing OK. Yeah, the water tastes funny, but it's not killing us.

It's not a poisoned well so much as a huge shift in societal mindset from any postsecondary education being viewed as valuable to some forms of postsecondary education actually being valuable and many specific instances of institutions being unsustainable under any likely current scenario. 

The problem isn't that no one anywhere has a job in academia; it's that far, far fewer good, stable, middle-class jobs in some parts of academia exist than qualified folks who want those jobs. 

There are more faculty positions than ever before in the whole of US academia.  However, the faculty job growth is in areas that many people don't view as being a legitimate college majors (e.g., engineering, criminal justice, nursing, computer science) and the areas where many, many people want jobs are losing the good jobs (e.g., many humanities fields).

The shift from general education being an in-house endeavor for most institutions to students arriving with college credit (AP, dual enrollment, CC transfer) ready to start their majors that have few general electives is another huge blow to the institutions that were primarily about a liberal arts model of college education that is 1/3 general education, 1/3 major, and 1/3 general electives.  The jobs teaching the general electives and general education (usually in the humanities and some of the social sciences) are just gone.  Even the adjunct slots are going away in many places where the general education courses were already assigned to the army of adjuncts in an effort to be cheap enough that students gaming the system would choose there this semester to keep the doors open.

At this point, the method of funding the institution matters more than almost any other factor in keeping the doors open.  The institutions that are primarily relying on currently enrolled students to pay the majority of the costs of running the institution are just hosed (and that's not limited to the tiny places we only learn about as they appear on the Dire Financial Straits thread).  The institutions that have a budget mostly funded by a combination of income streams not directly tied to current enrollment are much more likely to be around in 10 years. 

That surviving group is not just the elite big places we all know, but includes also the work colleges and some of the unique smaller places that have shepherded their resources well over the decades and therefore have not only a healthy endowment, but also a fantastic network of alumni and friends who ensure that tuition can be much less than the cost of attendance.

I'm not in any way bitter about leaving academia for a fabulously cool job that uses my PhD, is where I want to live, and pays enough that I have no money worries.  I am extremely worried that people are underinformed about the wide span of academia and what going to a lesser place may really mean in terms of job stability.

[Hibush]

So, do we see, feel, believe that demographic declines will continue to lead to a decline in demand, thus need for institutions of higher education of all sorts?

There will be a reduction in student numbers of about 10% over the next five to ten years. That is a relatively small correction, compared to e.g. restaurants in 2020. It will be a mature market. The business approach in a mature market is different from a growth market. Some growth is likely to resume in the 2030s.

Will colleges continue to compete for a shrinking pool? Or is there a significant untapped market that actually can be brought in to be the next generation of nurses, auto techs, and first generation college graduates?

Colleges will continue to compete with one another for that 90%, but some will fail. That will slightly reduce competition.
The distribution of educational demand among those 90% will also continue to change.

Some geographic regions and some types of schools are going to see greater decline in demand and will be more likely to close.

Schools in the West and the thriving parts of the south (TX, AZ, FL, NC) will have increasing demand because the population is growing, access to education is stronger and the economy needs college educated workers.

Schools in the top tier of what they do will continue to thrive, while those at the bottom will suffer a lot. In part, this is the "rich-get-richer, poor-get-poorer" design of our current economy. More importantly, it is a consequence of the policies and practices that put them at the top or bottom tier of their group.

Big schools will continue to grow. Places like Arizona State, Southern New England, Cal State Fullerton, Univ. of Central Florida are gigantic and popular. They could add the student body of three or four tiny out-of-business schools without it even making a blip in their enrollment statistics. Higher education will be fine.

City schools will do well, rural schools will not. Urbanization is a global trend that will not stop. It is not something to agonize over. Rural areas will depopulate, and therefore need fewer institutions of all kinds. Those communities have a lot of trouble grappling with that phenomenon, but it has to be done to make a sustainable community.

If weak schools that enroll 10-15% of the current student body close, the higher-education sector will be in good shape. Both individual schools and the sector as a whole.

The switch from a growth sector to a mature sector has the same challenges for colleges as any other part of the economy. The things that produced growth in the past won't all be the same the produce resilience now.

[mamselle]

Answer to title: Yes, until a survey of the Graham Norton Show becomes a required part of the curriculum throughout the country.

M. 

[spork]

Many small no-name schools in the northeast quadrant of the USA are going to get crushed in the coming academic year:

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2021/01/26/common-apps-new-data-show-overall-gains-applications-not-first.

And SUNY -- holy cow.

[marshwiggle]

Many small no-name schools in the northeast quadrant of the USA are going to get crushed in the coming academic year:

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2021/01/26/common-apps-new-data-show-overall-gains-applications-not-first.

And SUNY -- holy cow.

From the article:

"Applicants are also applying to more colleges this year. With a 9 percent increase in the application per applicant ratio on top of all of the other changes in the external environment and admissions process, it is an understatement to say that yield models will be more challenged than ever this year."

Translation: Even if someone "applied" to your institution, the probability that you're their only (or even first) choice is getting smaller.

[Hibush]

Many small no-name schools in the northeast quadrant of the USA are going to get crushed in the coming academic year:

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2021/01/26/common-apps-new-data-show-overall-gains-applications-not-first.

And SUNY -- holy cow.

From the article:

"Applicants are also applying to more colleges this year. With a 9 percent increase in the application per applicant ratio on top of all of the other changes in the external environment and admissions process, it is an understatement to say that yield models will be more challenged than ever this year."

Translation: Even if someone "applied" to your institution, the probability that you're their only (or even first) choice is getting smaller.

"Overall applications were up by 10 percent, reaching 5,583,753, according to the study. There were 989,063 unique applicants who submitted at least one application, an increase of 1 percent over last year."

To reinforce the translation, the numbers given above show that if all applicants were admitted, the yield would be a horrible 18%. No school wants to fool around with that. The yield on the ones who can both pay and succeed in the classes will be even lower.

At this point, looking at applications as a metric is pretty misleading. The total number of applicants is a much better metric of how many seats are likely to be filled. That is up a hair, not down. That means demand for Higher Ed as a whole did not decline this year.

[Hibush]

Many small no-name schools in the northeast quadrant of the USA are going to get crushed in the coming academic year:

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2021/01/26/common-apps-new-data-show-overall-gains-applications-not-first.

And SUNY -- holy cow.

From the link to the SUNY article,

"Finally, we must embrace the reality that education is also no longer a static two- or four-year process, but a life-long journey in which people—me, you, everyone—will need to retrain and learn new skills at various points during their lives and careers.

Adapting to the changing workforce doesn't mean students are simply widgets being processed through the machinery of education and spit out into a job. While transforming our system, we must reject the ease of factory-line sameness offered by one-size-fits-all, big-box colleges currently permeating our communities online or in pop-up store fronts. The great existential threat in public higher education comes from outside institutions with the gloss and glam of slick advertising and their promises of plenty, which often turn out to be fool's gold for students. We need quality, not just access."

That looks like a big swipe at the for-profits. I'm glad that they are articulating a vision for the role of SUNY colleges workforce training/job preparation. This message is clearly aimed at those who didn't apply to SUNY this year.

[marshwiggle]

Many small no-name schools in the northeast quadrant of the USA are going to get crushed in the coming academic year:

https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2021/01/26/common-apps-new-data-show-overall-gains-applications-not-first.

And SUNY -- holy cow.

From the link to the SUNY article,

"Finally, we must embrace the reality that education is also no longer a static two- or four-year process, but a life-long journey in which people—me, you, everyone—will need to retrain and learn new skills at various points during their lives and careers."

Which means more evening and weekend classes, among other things. How many faculty are going to embrace that?

[downer]

There are going to be plenty of unemployed faculty looking for jobs who will probably be pleased to teach whenever they can.

For classes that can be online easily, I expect a move away from evening and weekend classes to online.