America’s Top Colleges

Forbes, partnering with the Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP), published its list of top 650 colleges and universities yesterday. Stanford came out on top. The full list can be found here.

Shake-up for higher ed

In a speech at Knox College in Illinois yesterday, President Obama promised “an aggressive strategy to shake up” higher education. “Today more students are earning their degree, but soaring costs saddle them with unsustainable debt,” said the president. “Families and taxpayers can’t just keep paying more and more into an undisciplined system where costs just keep on going up and up and up. We’ll never have enough loan money, we’ll never have enough grant money to keep up with costs that are going up 5, 6, 7 percent a year. We’ve got to get more out of what we pay for.”

Precisely. But what he intends to do about it remains unclear.

If you were rejected, your lack of merit may have had nothing to do with it

Higher ed isn’t nearly the meritocracy it pretends to be. If you received college rejection letters this past spring, I hope you’re over it. If not, take a few minutes and watch Fareed Zakaria’s on-air take on college acceptance letters.

Is underemployment the colleges’ problem?

One view:

In a similar fashion, bachelor degree granting institutions have an obligation to address the employment concerns of new degree-holders. These institutions must take the lead in combating the growing epidemic of underemployment among recent college graduates. The responsibility for university officials does not end when they shake a student’s hand at graduation and issue a diploma. Accountability measures for student success must include real world achievements, not just academic achievements. It is imperative that colleges and universities begin to place just as much emphasis on job placement rates as they do on graduation rates. (Bill R. Path, President of Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology, with full blog post here.)

Another view (as highlighted in this Inside Higher Ed article by Scott Jaschik):

Average spending on college is $21,178

The average amount spent on a year of college is now $21,178, according to a study released today by Sallie Mae, a financial services company specializing in education. This is down from a peak of $24,097 in the 2009-10 academic year.

Price is a bigger factor in choosing a college. A majority of families reports eliminating certain colleges from their search because of how expensive they are.

A greater number of college students are choosing to live at home, too. Even students from families with income over $100,000 are adopting this cost-saving approach.

Rough road ahead for PA universities

Yesterday I focused on the enrollment challenges at private nonprofit colleges and the ways applicants and their parents can ensure the most favorable price. Today the focus shifts to public universities.

In an earlier post, I mentioned the expected enrollment shortfall at Central Michigan University. It’s obvious that the falloff in admissions wouldn’t be restricted to CMU or Michigan, however. Reports of similar situations will trickle out over the next few months. One such report surfaced this past weekend.

In this report by the TribLive News, we learn that faculty and staff at six of the 14 universities within the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) have been warned of possible layoffs, which means, of course, that enrollment erosion at those universities has continued if not accelerated.

Good news for college applicants on pricing

News is coming in confirming what was apparent for several years: the higher ed market is softening further. By that I mean that downward enrollment and pricing pressures are building on colleges. Two news reports over the weekend are illustrative.

NCAA hypocrisy at its best

This was too good not to share. Here is a quote from a story by AZCentral.com about the Pac-12’s effort to exclude Grand Canyon University, a for-profit institution, from competing in NCAA Division I athletics.

Arizona State President Michael Crow said Friday that he welcomes new competition in the Valley from Grand Canyon University but added that he doesn’t believe in competing in athletics against a for-profit university.

On Thursday, Grand Canyon President and CEO Brian Mueller said he believes Crow is leading an effort by Pac-12 CEOs to try to block the school’s move into NCAA Division I athletics.

“It’s about what we want the NCAA to be,” Crow said. “We support any reform possible to enhance the value of the scholar-athletes and meeting higher academic standards. It’s challenging enough to balance academics and athletics. We are against using athletics as a mechanism to make profits. It’s contrary to what we’re trying to do.”

You can’t make this stuff up.

7/22/13 Supplement: See this article in Inside Higher Ed.

Thousands of jobless law school grads

According to this article in AmLaw Daily by renowned commentator Steven Harper, titled How—and Why—the Lawyer Bubble Keeps Growing, U.S. law schools are projected to graduate, each year through the remainder of this decade, somewhere from 13,500 to 22,500 more lawyers than the market can absorb. Anyone considering law school would do well to read Mr. Harper’s article.

As I’ve mentioned on prior occasions, I don’t think this means you shouldn’t go to law school if that’s your deep desire, you have the wherewithal to finance it and you choose your law school wisely (see prior posts). But it does mean that thousands of other students would do well to consider other options.

Another Virginia college in trouble

Higher ed in Virginia continues to show signs of stress. Previously, we covered the shenanigans at UVA, the closure of Saint Paul’s College and the endangered accreditation of Virginia Intermont College. Now we learn that Norfolk State University (NSU) is dealing with severe challenges of its own.