When College Is About the Job—and the College Admission Landscape
In our latest episode of Future U., Jeff Selingo and I interviewed Terrell Dunn, one of the founders of HCM Strategists, a public policy consultancy. Along with Edge Research and the Gates Foundation, HCM Strategists conducted a couple studies to better understand what's driving college enrollment declines (the most recent one is here).
The study had an interesting design, because it surveyed high school juniors and seniors, as well as non-enrollees—18- to 30-year olds who either dropped out or never went to a two- or four-year college.
According to Dunn: “Both groups really view going to college as about getting a job and long-term economic security. The non-enrollees hold that view a little bit more strongly than the high school students do. But really the top four reasons we saw for going to college all relate to that. Am I going to get a job? Am I going to get a good job? Am I going to get a job that will provide me economic stability over time?”
What’s striking is that in both groups—but especially the non-enrollees—many don’t view college as the best way to achieve those things given the tradeoffs of time, money, opportunity cost, and likely success.
Our conversation with Dunn set the stage for a lively back-half where Jeff and I talked about just how much the value proposition around college has changed in the minds of would-be students—and how much I think that many of these individuals are probably right to hold their views.
Jeff says that’s going to get me some hate mail—so after you’ve listened to the full episode here, we’d love to see if he’s right or if you buy my logic of why college isn’t right for everyone.
The Truth About the College Admission Landscape
I was honored to also join Rick Clark, who oversees recruitment and admissions at Georgia Tech, and Brennan Barnard, the director of college counseling and outreach at the Khan Lab School and the director of college counseling for the College Guidance Network (where I’m an advisor) on their podcast, The Truth About College Admission.
We talked about:
how students should think about the value of dual enrollment classes (hint: it comes down to their own goals!);
how they ought to evaluate a college when deciding where to apply and go;
how to think about intellectual safety on campuses (especially given the current climate);
and, once again, my view that college clearly isn’t the right step for everyone. For it to be so, the risk of not completing should be a lot lot lot lower than it is currently—meaning that the costs should go down and student success should go up.
Finally, I also contributed an article to the Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Higher Education in 2035” report—in which I ventured back into the predictions game. You can purchase the report to read all my thoughts, along with those of Nathan Grawe, Steven Mintz, and more.
As always, thanks for reading, writing, and listening.