US higher education faces price correction, not collapse — columnist
The US higher education system is facing demographic and financial challenges, but this does not mean an inevitable collapse of universities. This assessment was made by Bloomberg Opinion economics columnist Allison Schrager in an opinion piece published by the Taipei Times.
Student enrollment and costs
The author notes that the share of people who consider a college education a worthwhile investment is declining. Some small institutions are using endowment funds to stay afloat. At the same time, Syracuse University did not meet its enrollment targets and faced a budget crisis.
According to Schrager, in the postwar period each generation of Americans was larger than the previous one, and more people wanted to enroll in college. Universities also attracted international students. Now, in her view, these sources of growth have been exhausted: enrollment in four-year colleges has remained at about 40% for more than a decade, future generations are smaller, and there are fewer international students.
More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.
The value of a degree
The columnist also points to problems within universities themselves: they are perceived as more politicized, some programs are considered questionable in terms of value, and grade inflation and opaque admissions, in her view, weaken the academic weight of a degree. The cost of four years of university education is now approaching US$400,000.
Despite this, Schrager believes that for most professions there remains a substantial income gap between college graduates and people without such an education, although it has narrowed somewhat. In her assessment, a person who completes college has a strong chance of earning nearly US$1 million more over a lifetime and is less likely to face unemployment. Most students, the author adds, choose professionally oriented fields, including business and health care-related specialties.
Pressure on private universities
Schrager compares the situation in higher education not to the collapse of overvalued stocks, but to a repricing of expensive bonds: prices may adjust, but universities will continue to provide educational services. She notes that more students are choosing less expensive public universities in the US South. In her view, elite private institutions will need the greatest changes — primarily in reducing costs and demonstrating the academic value of their programs.
