Mark Linker
Opinion Editor
A few weeks ago, I wrote a column about the decline of traditional humanities degrees in universities. This is a shift that has been happening over the past couple of decades with factors such as the increased cost of living, ideological capture of many humanities fields, and free access to information being the main contributing factors towards the gradual move away from these subjects. However, the shift away from humanities and towards STEM and “hands-on” professions isn’t just crouping up within the universities but is also one of the primary trends that are killing universities in general.
Over the past 10 to 15 years, the cost of attending college has made it a luxury that only the wealthiest people in our country can afford without any debt. If someone comes from a family that isn’t financially stable, they will inevitably be suffocated with massive amounts of payments upon graduating from a school that they spent four years attending. This is four years where one isn’t able to work full-time and begin saving their finances.
This has caused a substantive preference for two-year programs that are significantly more affordable and usually offer apprenticeships. This apprenticeship gives the individual field experience and allows them to make some money. The rising cost of attending college is pushing young people, particularly men, away from college. This trend is likely to continue, and if it does we face a situation where colleges and universities will only be attended by the most financially elite people in our society. This trend has been reinforcing itself for the past few decades, whereas the price of college has gone up and the population of college students has been selected for a smaller and wealthier subset of the general population. This has also had a reinforcing behavior, where the culture surrounding universities has become further disconnected from the values of everyday Americans making them less appealing. Why attend a costly school that for the first quarter of your twenties never helps build wealth, and for many degrees, does not even help one learn a particular skill that can be applied in the workforce? With this environment, it is completely reasonable to assume that the death of higher education for the general public is inevitable.
With this collapse looming over our country, there will likely be ramifications felt. For one, it’s entirely possible that fewer men getting degrees and therefore better-paying jobs will exacerbate the already growing gender divide we see playing out. In this situation, women will continue to get better-paying jobs and climb the economic ladder, while the men choosing to not attend universities will likely move toward social conservatism. It’s also the case that although most college graduates are women, the more selective and expensive higher education gets, many women will also be left by the wayside but without having the selection of two-year programs that men do. What we find ourselves with is a youth population that in 20 years will be vastly less educated than decades prior.
If the government cares about inculcating a culture of great education to the widest possible margins, we need to rethink our higher education system. One solution could be offering some of these two-year programs at major universities while adding some requirements for mathematics, science, and history. Another could be cutting a huge number of required classes from most universities, thus reducing the price and time spent at college. Along with the cutting of classes and reducing the cost, every program should have at least one semester of built-in internship work. Although some programs do this nationwide, it’s not always a requirement.
If we can reinvigorate the notion of higher education, we can heal many of the social ills that are infecting our stability as a nation. Making college more affordable and practical will bring young people together and fulfill the goals that college was originally meant for. To allow every citizen to expand their knowledge both through experience and study.