MORNING RANT - The Rolling Implosion of Higher Education: Men Adapting Just Fine; Will Women Be Hit Hardest?

With universities having evolved into outrageously expensive left-wing indoctrination camps, and with the perceived value of a sheepskin plummeting, college enrollment is declining, driven by a significant decline in young men attending college.

The men will be fine, in fact most will thrive without acquiring tuition debt and exposure to the hateful racial obsession of college life. I’m actually more concerned about the career prospects for women in a post-university future.

First, here is what Pew Research is reporting:

“Fewer young men are in college, especially at 4-year schools” [12/18/2023]

College enrollment among young Americans has been declining gradually over the past decade. In 2022, the total number of 18- to 24-year-olds enrolled in college was down by approximately 1.2 million from its peak in 2011.

Most of the decline is due to fewer young men pursuing college. About 1 million fewer young men are in college but only 0.2 million fewer young women. As a result, men make up 44% of young college students today, down from 47% in 2011, according to newly released U.S. Census Bureau data.

Today, men represent only 42% of students ages 18 to 24 at four-year schools, down from 47% in 2011.

An interesting point is that the potential pool of 18 to 24 year-old college students has not declined, it’s simply that fewer young men are paying for the privilege of being hated on at an indoctrination camp.

The decline in young college enrollment since 2011 is not driven by a drop in the overall number of 18- to 24-year-old high school graduates. That number has modestly increased since 2011. Instead, the falling share of young high school graduates who are enrolling in college is causing the decline. And the drop has been greater among young men than women.

Today, only 39% of young men who have completed high school are enrolled in college, down from 47% in 2011. The rate at which young female high school graduates enroll has also fallen, but not by nearly as much (from 52% to 48%).

The oft-cited statistics regarding the impact of college degrees on income are an example of conflating correlation with causation. Individuals with initiative, problem solving skills, and leadership ability have historically been pushed into the college track. It’s those characteristics that advanced their careers, not the Business Management class they attended as a hungover 20-year-old college student.

In my family there are several men with those characteristics who never attended college, and who have had incredibly successful careers. One is a man who became a real estate developer. His first job out of high school was food prep in a restaurant’s kitchen, but everywhere he worked he exhibited leadership and a great work ethic, propelling him upward. Another family member started working as a small engine mechanic out of high school. He is now the successful owner of a company doing defense contracting. A college degree was not necessary for these hard-working, motivated men, and it might have held them back if it had steered them into a corporate cubicle.

There is a man I met who owns an appliance repair business, who had a brilliantly simple and well executed plan to become a successful business owner, without incurring debt, all while receiving a paycheck. Through personal experience with a broken appliance, he learned that there was a lengthy wait to get a service call due to a shortage of appliance repairmen in our city. So, he took a position as an apprentice with a local appliance repair business, then soon became a capable tech who was fully in charge of repair visits for his employer. After less time than it takes to get a college degree, and with experience on a wide variety of appliances, he then hung out his own shingle and signed on with a prominent home warranty company as an authorized provider. The home warranty business sent him all the business he could handle, and soon he was hiring techs and training apprentices.

The success of these men is all well and good, but what about women who want careers that don’t require college degrees? While trades are lucrative for men, women are generally not drawn to them, and there don’t seem to be as many high-paying opportunities for women without degrees as there are for men.

As I wrote about a few months ago, fields that women are drawn to such as social work and speech pathology not only require a degree, but they effectively require a Masters Degree.

This is all a racket and a scam that mainly preys on young women and enriches the universities. In fact, every single person I’ve know that has followed these 6 or 7 year degree plans is female. I am not disputing that these are legitimate academic fields and respectable careers (although the radical left’s takeover of their accrediting agencies has certainly tarnished their image in my eyes) but there is no reason that it takes 6 or more years of schooling to become a social worker. If architects and RNs can practice with a bachelor’s degree or less, so can a speech pathologist.

It would be good for some conservative political leaders at the state level to try to bust the alliance between the university cartel and the licensing organizations for these fields. It would also be doing society a favor if women pursuing a career in fields like these didn’t have to be subjected to woke indoctrination to get their licenses.

The rejection of the “the college path” by so many young men is good news for the country. They don’t need a degree, and they will thrive and prosper while starving the beast of tuition money. I also hope that as universities continue to lose power and respectability that more career paths open up for women without degrees.

[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]

posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM

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