🎓 Alma Later!

Why college enrollment keeps declining every year

Over the past two decades small colleges have started blinking off the map, with more closures coming. Their fall is going to change society forever. Here’s how:

U.S. College enrollment hit its peak in 2009

It has been declining ever since.

Why?

College is too expensive.
I went to undergrad ~14 years ago at a public university in California. I paid $6000 in tuition for the year. Students at that same university now pay $14,000 a year, more than double the price.

“But inflation!” I hear you say (no, not “butt inflation”🙄).

Even accounting for inflation, the cost of college has nearly tripled since the 1960s - not just tuition, but room and board as well. Meanwhile wages have not kept up since 1978 (see this piece I wrote, in part, on wages recently).

What about online learning? Isn’t that cheaper? Yes, but only marginally so. Many of my students weren’t too happy during the pandemic because a number of colleges charge almost as much for online courses as they do for in-person ones. Additio…