Will 2024-25 be the year of “peak college?”
We’ll soon see Vanderbilt University become the first institution to charge more than $100,000 a year. More colleges will follow.
Parents are watching college students chant “Death to America” and “We are Hamas” at various campuses. Their children are taking hybrid classes, just like during COVID, and missing graduation ceremonies.
A tone-deaf President Joe Biden wants to cancel another $7.4 billion in student loans, which really means putting them on your tab.
The rollout of the revamped Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, was a disaster this winter. FAFSA is a gateway document for obtaining student financial aid. Colleges are months behind, and applications are down 40% as a result. This is the same federal government that sues Ticketmaster for bungling Taylor Swift ticket sales.
The 2020 census indicates that the pool of young people who might one day want to go to college is shrinking. I saw a college administrator driven nearly to tears looking at the dearth of 5-year-olds who would be applying to his college in 13 years. Corporate types call this the “diminishing addressable market.”
An average of one college or university a week is going out of business so far this year, with 12,000 campuses closing between July 2004 and June 2020, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Postsecondary Education Participant System.
Gross enrollment was down almost 1 million students, 87% of them men, just before the COVID pandemic hit. That is a 15% decline since 2011.
Meanwhile, assistant football linebacker coaches pull down six-figure salaries at any number of Division I schools. Top athletes dart from college to college wherever they get the best name, image and likeness package.
Check out the arduous UNC system calendar, typical of many institutions. The kids only go to class 140 days a year, if they don’t take Fridays off. Besides Labor Day, there are two “well being days” in September, two “Fall Break” days and “University Day” in October and three days off for Thanksgiving in November. Mom or dad may be working Wednesday and Friday of that week.
Second semester holidays kick off with Martin Luther King Day in January, two more well-being days in February, plus one in March after nine days off for Spring Break. “Spring Holiday” was March 29 this year. I guess it would be too triggering to have identified it as “Good Friday.”
Parents are pushing back, according to the Wall Street Journal. They want a refund of expensive tuition bills when students are denied entry to class, and graduations are canceled. At least one student has sued Columbia for breach of contract.
For the first time in my 35 years as a Rotarian here, three of our 10 recent scholarship winners chose to spend their money at College of The Albemarle. Two more are going to Elizabeth City State University. Fine academic programs are available at both, from aviation to welding. What really attracted parents was the modest cost. You could send six kids through the COA-ECSU pipeline toward a four-year degree for what it costs for one year at Columbia University.
Jewish hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, a Harvard grad, erected a movie screen across the street from pro-Palestine encampments at George Washington University. He showed a loop of Hamas terror video shot on Oct. 7.
Kevin O’Leary, “Mr. Wonderful” on the show “Shark Tank,” is working to cull pro-Hamas, antisemitic demonstrators from the candidate pool for his businesses. He’s using commercial grade artificial intelligence apps mounted on drones to scour the crowds of demonstrators.
O’Leary claims he can identify them from 500 feet away just by their eyes. Resumes from the “Death to America” crowd go into the trash. “You’re screwed,” he warns no students in particular.
American universities may be, too.
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