Posted on 09/09/2023 9:19:33 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Are our secular universities, especially those leaning most radically left, soon to collapse – or at least, soon to lose their current positions of power and influence? A good case can be made that the answer could well be yes.
First, there has been a serious dip in enrollment in our colleges and universities across the nation. As noted in a March 9, 2023 headline on the Fortune website, “The labor shortage is pushing American colleges into crisis, with the plunge in enrollment the worst ever recorded.”
Yes, “What first looked like a pandemic blip has turned into a crisis. Nationwide, undergraduate college enrollment dropped 8% from 2019 to 2022, with declines even after returning to in-person classes, according to data from the National Student Clearinghouse. The slide in the college-going rate since 2018 is the steepest on record, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“Economists say the impact could be dire.”
Already in May 2022, US News reported that, “College Enrollment Declines Are Here to Stay. The enrollment data comes as a growing number of students consider alternatives to higher education – both as a result of tuition costs and data highlighting earnings potential without a degree.”
Is a college degree really that important for life and success, especially in light of today’s sky-high tuition?
Second, declining birth rates are contributing to lower enrollments. As the Hechinger Report explained, “focusing only on the effects of Covid on enrollment obscures that a demographic downturn has already been squeezing colleges and universities for a decade during which the number of students has declined by an unprecedented 2.6 million, or 13 percent.
“Because of a falloff in the number of births during the last recession, another drop of from 11 to 15 percent is projected beginning in the mid-2020s in the number of prospective college students graduating from high schools.”
But it is here that a separation could be coming, as Christian conservatives have more children than do liberals and the non-religious.
As a July 2021 headline in the Western Journal announced, “Birth Rates Are the Right’s Secret Weapon as Liberal Values Backfire.”
The article by Miska Salleman stated that, “Data from the General Social Survey indicates that in the 1970s ‘there was little or no difference in fertility rates between liberal and conservative women,’ according to the Institute for Family Studies.”
Over time, though, that statistic has changed dramatically, and Salleman reports, “As of 2018, the gap had widened markedly, with conservative women between the ages of 30-44 averaging near 2.5 children and liberal women just over 1.5.” She continues, “To approach the data another way, the survey also shows that a random sample of 100 conservative adults will raise 208 children. One hundred liberal adults will raise only 147 kids, according to Fatherly.”
And what does this mean in practical terms? “That gap means that conservatives could hold a political edge, as the size of liberal families continues to dwindle. The evidence that supports this idea is overwhelming,” and it is only logical to assume that it will affect college enrollments too.
It is true, of course, that not all of these children of Christian conservatives will go to Christian schools, and it is also true that there has been a problem of retention. (In other words, a sizable minority of these young people will leave the faith.) But the more extreme the secular universities become, the more likely it is that they will lose more and more Christian conservatives.
Take Harvard University as a case in point. Its prestige and influence are hard to exaggerate. Yet in a recent report, Harvard was rated as the worst school in the nation when it came to free speech. The worst!
But that’s only the beginning of the story. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Harvard scored a zero out of 100 possible points, with the next worst school scoring at 11 out of 100. In fact, according to FIRE, Harvard’s score of “0.00 is generous” because its “actual score is -10.69.” So, on a scale of 1 to 100, Harvard scored a minus 10.69.
Will Harvard, along with other hyper-woke schools, continue to draw students into such an oppressive atmosphere? Perhaps at a certain point the risk will outweigh the reward.
And how long will Christian parents continue to send their kids to these elite schools where their faith will come under constant attack?
Third, the more these schools embrace radical Marxism, the less students will receive a practical education and the less equipped they will be for the real world. (If you have any doubt about the Marxist ideological takeover of many of our schools, see Christopher Rufo’s America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.)
The Fortune article referenced, “hundreds of thousands of young people who came of age during the pandemic but didn’t go to college. Many have turned to hourly jobs or careers that don’t require a degree, while others have been deterred by high tuition and the prospect of student debt.” Add to this the simple fact that Marxism doesn’t work and you have a further recipe for disaster.
Contrast this with a February 7, 2023 article in the Daily Caller that stated, “Christian colleges and universities are seeing an increase in enrollment despite the national enrollment rate of college students being on a decline, higher education experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“The national undergraduate enrollment rate dropped 1.1% during the fall 2022 semester while the rate declined a total of 4.2% since 2020, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Many faith-based institutions, however, saw an increase in enrollment which higher education experts claim is because of these institutions’ commitment to their roots.”
Could a major shift be underway?
#4 Our high schools aren't producing college-material graduates anymore.
Today's kids can barely make it out of high school with a basic ability to read and do simple math. Why would they want to continue on to college where it just gets harder?
-PJ
Based on current birth rates, Somewhere between 100 and 120 years from now, 70% of the population will be Amish - I’m just sayin …
Entering freshman class Univ of Ga. 1970 4000 kids. School year 2023-2024 has 6200 kids 1st year UGA. A massive expansion of university and private housing. UGA Athens campus and surrounding area are growing larger with more and more students.
“70% of the population will be Amish “
and the horse manure will be waist high ... cool
I hope every single leftist “university” in this country crashes and burns!
Based on TV commercials, film roles and government officials, I thought it already was.
I saw an ad tonight with a white bride getting ready to marry a black guy, with her Asian maid on honor nearby. In another one I could watch the blacks stuff their mouths with tacos up close. They can’t be trying to sell us stuff.
I think the basic game plan is to dilute or destroy the last vestiges of white western culture.
Conservative and Christian no longer just means white. The biggest growth is Hispanic Christians that have many children
What happens to the birth rate of the welfare dependent when the welfare system collapses, and women see that single moms have to support their own spawn by working an hourly job?
What’s needed is a testing service that measures reading, writing, and reasoning skills of young people.
And is immune from lawsuits for giving low scores to “protected groups”.
This pattern of demographics has been known for some time as liberal women have aborted their children at a much higher rate than conservative women. Hence, one of the real reasons they left is allowing the illegal invasion of some of the lowest socio-economic third-worlders. The long plan obviously is to offset these people for their own demographic decline. There is a reason these invaders are getting huge government subsidies. Next we see the fight to allow them to get driver’s licenses, then to vote in local elections. I don’t care about every other ancillary reason given for allowing this illegal invasion, the sole purpose is to dilute and offset the demographic imbalance for political voting power. End of story.
Especially those ubiquitous, female, Amish judges on TV and in movies.
re: Is a shift on the way?
I likely won’t live long enough to see it.
I hope so.
The vastly overpriced indoctrination centers need to fail.
How did this happen in two short generations?
Yep. I have a young relative in college who has complained because two of his friends went to trade school instead and are now already earning and have very little debt. These two friends come from families which would normally have pushed college.
It seems covid and BLM have exposed colleges for the scams they are.
They have outlived their usefulness.
It’s past time.
Now, we're seeing what life is like without Christ.
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