STREET. PAUL, Minn. — At a college application information session held at Central High School at the beginning of this school year, students listened as Tory Park, college and career readiness coordinator, gave tips on how to narrow down a list. from where to apply.
The message was that students must balance two main factors: the right “fit” (weighing details like the size of the institution, how far it is from home, and whether it has the programs the student is interested in) and the right “match.” , that is, if the student has the academic qualifications that the university is looking for.
But in this room there was a third factor at play, at least in the minds of many of the students. Let's call it the “doubt factor,” the nagging question of whether higher education is really necessary to get the kind of job they expect after high school.
Lily Krieger, a senior here who said she's interested in fashion and business, put it this way: “I feel like I'll probably just do it for the business side, and then maybe start something from that.” I don't necessarily think I need to go to college. “I’ll probably do it for my parents’ sake.”
Jamal Williams, another student in the session, said he is open to college if he can afford it, and is already earning some college credits through a program in high school that allows him to take classes at a nearby two-year school. college year every afternoon. But he also regularly speaks online with young people who have found a way to make a living following their main interests (music and programming) without a college degree.
“I've been investigating cases of people my age who go (to college), and then come out and use their degree and still struggle to make a living,” he says. “If that's going to happen anyway, I don't want to waste four years of time and effort just to make that happen.”
These students have grown up with a lot of messages telling them to go to college, and this public high school is proud of its track record of helping people get into higher education if that's what they want to do. But these students have also grown up hearing some serious criticisms of college: that it is too expensive, and perhaps not worth it, that it is outdated in the way it is taught, and that the material covered is outdated.
And there are more options than ever for students after high school, and more reports that employers, even big-name ones like Google, will hire you even if you don't have a college degree. And that has made the choice these students face a little more complicated.
As a result, students and their families have become smarter customers of higher education. In previous generations, more students headed to a four-year residential college without really knowing what they wanted to major in or do for a career, says Ashley Welke, Central's school counselor. But she says that has changed.
“They want to have a plan before they leave,” he says of most of the students he works with now. “And that's something we've changed a lot as counselors and educators in our program: really trying to work on that professional awareness.”
In recent years, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, some options have become more popular as a result of this new knowledge, he says.
One is that more and more students are seeking gap years. “They want to take that time off and see what they want to do because of the expense of going to school,” she adds. And some students strategically move to a state where they want to attend college, so they can work for a year to obtain residency and qualify for in-state tuition at a public institution.
And more and more students are including two-year colleges on their application list. About 30 percent of the school's seniors are applying to a two-year college “until they figure out if they can financially afford a four-year degree,” Welke says. In the past, that figure was about 15 percent.
These trends appear to be happening across the country. TO Gallup poll found that confidence in higher education among American adults has fallen from 57 percent in 2015 to 36 percent last year.
This is the second episode of a podcast series we call Doubting College, where we explore: What happened to public belief in college? And how does that influence the decisions young people make about what to do after high school?
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts, or use the player on this page.
Our first episode of the series explored the Thiel Scholarship, the program started by billionaire Peter Thiel more than a decade ago that pays $100,000 each year to 20 young people to stay out of college. We discuss how the show played a role in bringing a hyperskeptic critique of the university into the mainstream of American discourse.
However, none of the Central High School students had heard of the Thiel scholarship, and Park, the counselor who led the college information session, notes the Data continues to show the long-term benefits of college..
“The people who suggest that students shouldn't go to college tend to be rich and white, so they are a certain type of people who have access to other things that will support them on their journey.” “Park says. “Compared to students who haven't deserved it, for whom having access to education is really crucial to solidifying their future and what they want it to be like.”
The conversation is different for students at private high schools, where they are still supposed to go to a four-year university. At least that's true at Woodside Priory School, a Catholic high school near Silicon Valley. As Nathan Mathabane, the school's associate director of college counseling, says, college readiness is central to the school's mission. But even there, he hears occasional questions about the rising cost of higher education.
“I have a school I came to visit where tuition and cost of attendance will be $88,000 per year next year, but the estimated earnings for their graduates will be around $70,000 or $80,000 for their entry-level job after they get that degree. And That feels like a big delta,” he says. “It will take a long time for that degree to pay off, depending on how you look at education. That's a point in higher education that we're at now and I have Curious to see how that part develops.”
