The Good News in American Higher Education: A number of hopeful, emerging trends

American Thinker ^ | 02/03/2016 | By Bonnie Snyder

[SeekAndFind]

There are a number of significant challenges in higher education today, including rising costs, diminishing returns, and the stifling effects of runaway political correctness on academic inquiry. That being said, it’s not all bad news. In fact, there are a number of hopeful, emerging trends that promise to create new and expanded opportunities for students while fostering a healthier campus intellectual climate:

1. Declining Number of Applicants – The number of college applicants peaked in 2009… around the same time the number of jobs for graduates bottomed out. What a disaster! Since then, due to demographic realities, the number of graduating high school seniors has declined and, with it, we have a smaller applicant pool in higher education. It is now becoming a buyer’s market for college applicants, and colleges are struggling to fill their freshman classes. This increases the applicants’ admission chances as well as their negotiating power for financial and merit aid awards.

2. Increasing Number of Jobs for Graduates After the worst job market for young adults since the Great Depression, graduates finally have reason for optimism. Thanks to the aging of the Baby Boomers and their shift into retirement, the labor market is starting to open up for young people. According to The Wall Street Journal, incomes for the newest batch of graduates are now the highest in over a decade, while unemployment rates are falling quickly. Also, the National Association of Colleges and Employers reports that employers plan to hire 11% more college graduates this year than last.

3. Tuition Discounting. After years of runaway tuition price inflation, completely disconnected from the rest of the economy and supported by mushrooming levels of student debt, market forces are finally starting to exert some influence

[Little Ray]

We still need good vocational training.