Slumping College Enrollment Signals Americans Are No Longer Buying The College Lie

Authored by Keli"i Akina via TheHill.com,

For decades, teachers and parents around the country have been repeating the same message to children: “To have a bright future, you need to go to college.”

But now, in Hawaii at least, it’s starting to look like the younger generation isn’t buying it.

Across the state, University of Hawaii college enrollment has plummeted by 15 percent in just six years, from a high of 60,300 students in 2012 to 51,300 as of 2017.

Trying to explain this decline, university President David Lassner pointed to the fact that college enrollment has been declining around the country. Some have blamed demographics, citing the decline in birthrates. Others blame economic factors such as an improving economy, which may entice high school graduates into the workforce instead.

In response, the state is attempting to bolster enrollment by (what else?) throwing money at the problem. There are proposals to increase education spending across the board, but in particular the state legislature during its past session approved the “Hawai’i Promise” scholarship program, an initiative approved by Gov. David Ige that will provide free community college tuition for qualifying residents, starting this fall.

“Qualifying residents” would be locals who are enrolled in a degree program, take at least six credits per semester and maintain a minimum 2.0 grade point average. Supporters of the free tuition program say it is needed to remove the barriers to higher education that prevent such students from succeeding.

But there’s another consideration they might be missing: This might just be a matter of supply, demand and perceived value.

As we all know, the cost of a college education has been increasing for years, so it was only a matter of time before potential students began weighing the costs and benefits of substantial debt and asking whether it’s really worth it. In an age of mobile-app startups and social media marketing, it might not be obvious to recent high school graduates that college can provide the employment skills they need at a price they can afford.

Instead, potential college students may be looking for ways outside the college system to make themselves desirable to employers. Apprenticeships, online programs, mentorship opportunities and entrepreneurship all provide avenues for jobs in the new economy. In fact, they may be a better way for ambitious young workers to set themselves apart from those with a conventional college degree.

Meanwhile, colleges are faced with a separate problem: What happens if the tuition money stops flowing in? UH President David Lassner has confirmed that tuition makes up approximately half the Manoa campus’ operating budget. If enrollment continues to decline, and student retention, which is stuck at about 75 percent, stays flat or also continues to decline, the school’s financial situation will deteriorate further.

Pouring state money into “free” tuition might stave off collapse of an imbalanced university system, but it cannot continue forever. If young people continue to reject the idea of a college degree and enrollment continues to decline, something is going to break. And it might be the state budget.

In the end, it may be that the market is finally catching up to higher education.

If students are no longer convinced of its value relative to its price, then either that value will have to increase or the price will have to come down.

Potential students are already looking at their options and deciding that college might not be worth the high price. States such as Hawaii might try to salvage their sinking state university systems by creating taxpayer-funded “free” college education programs, but it won’t be long before taxpayers start asking if it’s worth the price too.

Manufacturing Companies Struggle To Recruit Workers For High-Paying Management Jobs

Americans who are hoping to avoid the shackles of student debt and proceed straight from high school into the workforce have more options for well-paid gainful employment than they might think. Even as the ROI on college degrees continues to decline, employers in certain blue-collar industries are struggling to fill management jobs that pay as much, or more, than jobs that require a college degree.

One such employer, 84 Lumber Co, is spending millions on advertising to spread its message that a management-track job at one of its stores can be more valuable than a college degree. The company pays trainees $40,000 a year, but employees in charge of top-grossing stores can earn as much as $200,000 a year. And some of those stores, managers earn more than $1 million. All without paying $60,000 a year in tuition to double major in art history and women’s studies, according to Bloomberg.

And 84 Lumber is hardly alone in it recruiting push: Associated General Contractors of Colorado is spending $2 million on recruiting and apprenticeships. Carpentry Contractors Co. in Minnesota hired a comedian to star in recruiting videos that have racked up a quarter-million views on YouTube.

One trainee quoted by Bloomberg was supposed to be the first person in his family to graduate from college, but he dropped out of Kent State and took a job at 84 Lumber instead. When asked why he left, he said he believes the experience of his management-training job with 84 Lumber is more valuable than that conferred by a college degree.

“Sabastian Kleis, the son of a waitress from Rust Belt Ohio, was supposed to be the first person in his family to graduate from college. Instead, he dropped out of Kent State University after two years. By most accounts, Kleis, 24, should be flipping burgers. But on a recent afternoon a lumber company was grooming him for a management job.

“You can go to college and learn the theology of the Roman Empire,” says Kleis, who just completed a three-day training program at 84 Lumber’s rural Pennsylvania headquarters. “You learn all this ridiculous nonsense, and when you get out, what are you applying that to? I know how to frame a house.”

Almost half of 84 Lumber’s trainees have no college degree, Bloomberg reports. Kleis was one of 15 who attended the latest three-day “Lumber Camp,” which is held in Eighty Four, the Pennsylvania town (population 700) near Pittsburgh where the company is based. Attendees learned construction basics, such as how to take proper measurements and how to turn a design blueprint into a “take-off,” the list of all materials and quantities needed.

Meanwhile, students who attend conventional four-year colleges are finding themselves in increasingly unsustainable financial binds.

As WSJ reports, the cost of college attendance is rising while the financial benefits of a degree are declining, aggravating the debt burden that students are forced to shoulder. Tuition costs have increased by 74.5% over the period between 2000 and 2016.

“From 2000 to 2016, the tuition-and-fees component of the Consumer Price Index rose 3.54% annually (74.5% over the entire period), adjusting for overall inflation. With sluggish business investment, a slowdown in income growth has aggravated the rising burden of paying for higher education. American families have taken on more than $1.3 trillion in student-loan debt—more than what they borrow with credit cards or to buy cars.”

“The earnings advantage associated with a bachelor’s degree compared with a high school diploma is no longer growing like it once did. Census data show that the average annual earnings differential between high school and four-year college graduates rose sharply, to $32,900 in 2000 (expressed in 2015 dollars) from $19,776 in 1975—only to fall to $29,867 by 2015. In the late 20th century rising higher-education costs were offset by the increasing financial benefits associated with a bachelor’s degree. Since 2000 those benefits have declined, while costs have continued to rise.”

Rising costs have also spurred rising default rates for student borrowers. According to the Fed, delinquency rates for student loans – which cannot be discharged in bankruptcy - have surpassed auto and mortgage loans.

More high school graduates are also choosing trade schools, which require less time and tuition money, but graduates end up with a specific set of skills. Trade school graduates leave school prepared for the industry they enter, where they can earn much higher wages than many four-year degree-holders, according to Bloomberg.

The rise of identity politics and the intolerant left are transforming campuses into hostile environments, especially for young men, for whom dropout rates have soared. That’s unsurprising, considering many of them are increasingly being pre-judged by their female peers - and even in some cases faculty - as entitled burgeoning rapists. Over the past decade, 30% of male freshmen dropped out before starting a second year.

With all this focus on microaggressions and trigger warnings, its unsurprising that colleges are doing an increasingly poor job of educating their students.

Recent data show that, while the cost of college degrees rises, the quality of these degrees in terms of their impact on students’ critical-thinking skills is declining, especially at flagship public universities, according to the College Learning Assessment Plus test.

“At more than half of schools, at least a third of seniors were unable to make a cohesive argument, assess the quality of evidence in a document or interpret data in a table”. The outcomes were the worst in large, flagship schools: “At some of the most prestigious flagship universities, test results indicate the average graduate shows little or no improvement in critical thinking over four years."

Even President Donald Trump, who famously attended the University of Pennsylvania, is trying to help students find gainful employment without obtaining a degree.

This month, President Donald Trump issued an order doubling money for apprenticeships, saying they enabled students to secure “great jobs” without college. “Apprentices earn while they learn,” he said.
 

New York Set To Be First State With 'Free' Tuition At Public Colleges

A last minute budget negotiation late Friday pretty much ensures that New York will be the first state to offer "tuition-free" public higher education to its entitled snowflakes.  The $163 billion state budget agreement includes the Excelsior Scholarship, which covers tuition for any New Yorker accepted to one of the state’s community colleges or four-year universities, provided their family earns less than $125,000 a year.

Of course, for politicians, "free" is just a nice way of saying they"re about to jam more taxes down the throats of working Americans to cover the cost of services they may or may not use personally.

The scholarship program will be phased in over three years, beginning for New Yorkers making up to $100,000 annually in the fall of 2017, increasing to $110,000 in 2018, and reaching $125,000 in 2019. Nearly 1
million families will qualify for the scholarship.

It is a last-dollar program, meaning the state would cover any tuition left over after factoring in federal Pell Grants and New York’s Tuition Assistance Program. Students must be enrolled in college full time and take at least 30 course credits a year, though those facing hardships can pause and restart the program or take fewer credits.

As the Washington Post points out, the program is expected to cost New York taxpayers $163 million in its first year and, like all other entitlements, will only grow over time. 

Proposed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo in January, the scholarship taps into one of the Democratic Party’s most popular ideas and advances a bipartisan movement to lower the cost of college that is taking shape across the country.

“Today, college is what high school was — it should always be an option even if you can’t afford it,” Cuomo said in a statement Saturday. “With this program, every child will have the opportunity that education provides.”

Not much changed from the initial proposal, including the $163 million estimated cost for the first year of the program, though there were concessions to win over lawmakers. Award recipients attending community college now have to remain in New York for two years after graduation, while those at state universities must stay for four years. Private universities, whose leaders said the plan would undermine their schools, will see an increase in state tuition assistance funding.

Of course, the irony of the situation is that, like many misinformed liberal entitlement programs, throwing more money at U.S. universities only serves to exacerbate the underlying problem of bloated, out-of-control college budgets.  But, on the bright side, America"s snowflakes will have yet another pool of money on which they can rely to fund their hedonistic, binge-drinking filled spring break trips to Cancun. 

31% Of College Students Spend Their Loans On Spring Break

As Washington D.C. liberals continue their fight for "free" college education for all (which, of course, is just a nicer way of saying largely useless community college education crammed down the throats of taxpayers) and student loan forgiveness programs, a new study from LendEDU reveals some of the shocking realities behind where college students are really spending their $1.3 trillion worth of student debt. 

Per a survey of 500 college co-eds, LendEDU found that 31% of students, or roughly 2.4 million kids, admitted to using student loan money to fund their binge drinking trips to Cancun and Daytona Beach for spring break.

According to the LendEDU poll, 30.60% of college students with student debt claim that they are using money they received from student loans to help pay for their spring break trip this year. For reference, you can use student loan funding for living expenses.

The National Center for Education Statistics calculated that 20.5 million students will be attending college this year in the United States. Orbitz reported that 55% of students will be going on spring break. Using this data, we can roughly calculate that 11,275,000 students will be going on spring break this year. And, it is estimated that 69% of all current college students use student loan debt by the time of graduation. By doing some additional arithmetic, we can calculate that roughly 7,779,750 student debtors are going on spring break this year.

Factoring in our data, and assuming the claims made in our survey are accurate, this means that 2.38 million students are using money received from student loans to pay for their spring break excursion this year.

But don"t worry yourselves you silly taxpayers...it"s only $1.3 trillion (and counting) of debt that you"ll soon have to cover.

Adding insult to injury, 24% of students admitted to using their student loan money for alcohol and 7% use those federally-subsidized checks for drugs.

Nearly a quarter (23.80%) of respondents stated that they have used money received from student loans to pay for drinking some type of alcohol. This answer also included spending money at bars.

A third (33.40%) of students answered that they have used money received from student loans to pay for clothing and other accessories.

Similarly, the same amount (33.40%) of students said that they have used money received from student loans to pay for restaurants and take-out.

6.60% of respondents responded saying that they have used money received from student loans to pay for drugs.

Finally, 5.60% of students that participated in our survey stated that they used money received from student loans on gambling or sports betting.

“Students should minimize their borrowing during their college years and live a sparse lifestyle — but no one wants to hear that when their fraternity brothers or sorority sisters are packing up to Cabo for the week,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst of Bankrate.com.  “It’s like putting spring break on a credit card, but this one is subsidized by taxpayers,” McBride added.

Meanwhile, as we pointed out before (see "Obama Student Loan Foregiveness Plan To Cost Taxpayers $137 Billion, GAO Finds"), the GAO currently estimates that taxpayers will ultimately have to cover $137 billion of student loan debt outstanding...an obligation we"re certain will only grow over time.

So fight on, Bernie...and while you continue your crusade for "free college," America"s entitled millennials will be laughing all the way to Cancun.