Fewer and fewer Americans are giving it the ol' college try. Enrollment in colleges and universities has declined noticeably in recent years, leaving schools and experts scrambling for answers. According to federal statistics, there are now 4 million fewer students enrolled in college than ten years ago, while the number of students entering college immediately after high school has fallen by nearly ten-percent since 2016. And the trend is likely to continue, as a recent poll found one third of U.S. college students are considering leaving school.
The biggest factor cited for the decline in college enrollment is the COVID-19 pandemic, which shuddered campuses and forced students into remote learning, while students who remained on campus faced strict mask and vaccine mandates. Rick Hess, director of education policy at the American Enterprise Institute, believes the pandemic was the final straw for many parents and students. "Even when they had students taking classes at home from their parents' basement or their kitchen table, these colleges said sure, we're only giving you a quarter of the experience we promised, but we still need to charge full price," he tells KTRH. "I think this really caused a lot of current students and potential students to take another look and say, what exactly am I paying all this money for?"
The pandemic and the broader debate over student loan forgiveness have shined a spotlight on the exorbitant costs of higher education, which Hess calls a "wake up call." "For many years, a lot of Americans were under the impression that paying a college to let you go and maybe eventually get a piece of paper was a good investment," he says. "And I think many people are now questioning if that's money well spent."
Beyond the cost, many Americans have also grown frustrated with the out-of-control woke policies and indoctrination taking place on college campuses. "They've alienated students of faith, students who are conservative, students who want to have robust conversations about important issues without being told that there's a set of right and wrong answers," says Hess.
"Unfortunately, between inertia, bureaucracy, and groupthink, colleges haven't been very good at making any of the changes necessary to reverse this trend."