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Bloomberg reports:
Dozens of schools have seen drops of more than 10 percent in enrollment, according to Moody's. As faculty and staff have been cut and programs closed, some students have faced a choice between transferring or finishing degrees that may have diminished value.
The number of private four-year colleges that have closed or were acquired doubled from about five a year before 2008 to about 10 in the four years through 2011, according to a study last year by researchers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, citing federal data.
Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen has predicted that as many as half of the more than 4,000 universities and colleges in the U.S. may fail in the next 15 years.
Soaring student debt, competition from online programs and poor job prospects for graduates are cited as the main causes.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Lagg on Tuesday April 15 2014, @07:44PM
Colleges are now actively trying to scam prospective students. When I tried to go back to finish my degree (I wanted to pursue my career and self-teaching is superior so didn't completely finish even though I probably do qualify for a degree at this point) I got a grant because I'm everything but wealthy. The grant was barely enough for classes and if I didn't use newegg I'd have to foot the book bill myself. They do this on purpose to give you just barely enough for course costs. Then they send you spam about loans.
That combined with the sheer tedium and frustration at stupid professors I gave up once again. I'm not a genius or a special snowflake but I'm tired of sitting through courses watching completely wrong material spewed out for topics I already have years of experience in. This, combined with the fact that degrees are becoming less important to companies that matter (they've learned to look at skill rather than a piece of paper saying someone can remember literature) is why people are not going to school.
If they want to fix it they need to stop trying to scam people and make book and course costs reasonable. Professors need to become competent in the courses they teach. For the core skills like english or math that anyone can do there is no issue. But we learned what we needed in grade school for that. More people than ever are trying to take tech related courses.
Sadly, the professors are often just a random guy who reads from his teacher's edition and parrots everything. This not only gives people a bad deal for their money but it also produces the moron code monkeys that we often have to clean up after. But competent professors aren't something you can throw money at. And that's the only thing they know how to do these days. Maybe they should give every college student an iPad. Maybe that'll work!
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 4, Interesting) by opinionated_science on Tuesday April 15 2014, @10:05PM
perhaps it depends on the subject? In the sciences proficiency in a wide array or material is a pre-requisite for many later courses. You don't want the heart surgery from someone who didn't get A's, and you don't want your anti-cancer drugs either...
Perhaps the issue is how much education is enough? There is a very good talk on TED regarding the sytematic removal of creativity in students in order to process them through the "Victorian educational system, producing output for the factory".
If there were greater literacy and numeracy education for adults it might help with the chronically unemployed.
If there were greater scientific and numerate literacy in the population at large there would be a greater pressure on politicians to deal with real policies not media-baited solutions.
Fundamentally, it would be nice if ALL educational materials were online up to , say , an undergraduate level. This would give a great many people access to materials before re-engaging in the professional academic system for credit.
Too much to ask?