College enrollments have fallen for seven years in a row and a growing number of schools are closing. While many blame demographics (a sharp decline in American fertility rates) or high college tuition fees, I think prospective students are reassessing the entire collegiate value proposition and, in growing numbers, concluding that going to college is a risky and sometimes losing investment, not at all the sure-fire ticket to financial success implied by some of the more exuberant propaganda from the College for All crowd.
For starters, about 40% of those entering four-year colleges do not receive a bachelor’s degree within six years (well under one-half receive degrees in the four years it allegedly is supposed to take). Some Federal Reserve data suggest that earnings of those who do graduate in the bottom quartile of their college class average not much more earnings than that of typical high school graduates. To be sure, the truth of that importantly depends on the quality of the school attended as well as the major subject studied, but it appears that fewer than half of entering college students end up having a good outcome from a financial perspective because they either fail to graduate or do not get good jobs.