<p>Colleges and Universities are changing and looking for ways to expand services while trimming costs. The book The Innovative University makes a great case for the type of change we are likely to see. Here is an interview with the authors: [Can</a> Higher Education Be Fixed? The Innovative University - Forbes](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2011/09/23/can-higher-education-be-fixed-the-innovative-university/]Can”>Can Higher Education Be Fixed? The Innovative University)</p>
<p>Plenty of Americans start college. Too few finish it. We also are producing way too many people with art and drama degrees.</p>
<p>If you put your college savings into a wide range of diversified stocks about 5 years ago and kept it there, it would basically be even today. If you withdrew money from stocks when the market was tanking in 2008-2009, you may have lost 40%.</p>
<p>More finish than the graduation numbers suggest since they typically look at the number who start at a particular college and how many finish at that college. When one considers that about 30% of students transfer at least once before graduating, the grad rate numbers underestimate true grad rates. Further, it is better to have some college than none. Plus, it makes it more likely the kids of those who had some college will attend and graduate.</p>
<p>There is little correlation between major and eventual occupation, so in what one majors is not a real concern. The higher correlation is between thinking skills attained and quality of job. Undergrad business schools are the worst at providing these (see the book Academically Adrift).</p>
<p>@SansSerif
My bad.
I am in favor of more training such as vocational school and trade school. I see way too many kids in college who are majoring in useless things and no plans etc.</p>
<p>All you need to know.
[Guest</a> Post: Student Debt Malinvestment | ZeroHedge](<a href=“404 | ZeroHedge”>Zerohedge)</p>
<p>As the easy money kool-aid loan pool shrinks (which it is, with the government attempting to fill the gap [which it can’t for much longer]), colleges and universities (except perhaps Ivy leagues and a few other select private schools) will be forced to cut back tuition in order to survive and even have attendance.</p>
<p>College seats will remain filled in 18 years due to supply and demand pressures, but if U.S. primary and secondary education continues its slide in funding and quality, those seats will increasingly be filled by foreigners, especially those with superior science backgrounds. We’ll have to wait and see if our rejection of science takes hold (re, e.g., climate change and evolution), causing long-term drop in our economic power, with foreigners better able to afford our likely still-superior colleges and universities.</p>
<p>The higher education bubble is likely to burst. Before the higher education bubble bursts, though, expect student strikes or tuition strikes (or both) at universities all around the country.</p>