Is it a myth?

My previous posts, especially "Trauma and Renewal," and most of the conversation about the state of higher education assert the common variables of declining enrollment, public skepticism, and lack of meaningful connections between learning and workforce placement/success. A Brookings Institute article, "What College affordability debates get wrong" reflects a very different understanding and provides the facts to back its assertions up. These key points include:

• The financial return to a bachelor’s degree has not declined, with college graduates earning roughly two to three times as much as high school graduates over most of their careers.
• Inflation-adjusted tuition and net college costs have been largely flat since the Great Recession, contradicting the widespread belief that prices continue to soar.
• After accounting for tuition and lost earnings, the typical college graduate breaks even by age 26 or 27 and gains more than $1 million over a lifetime.

If educators take these assertions for reality, then the conversation about the future of higher education might be very different than the "woe is me" conversations surging through most institutions. There are institutions that are closing - 14 in 2023, 16 in 2024, and 15 in 2024. Most of the closures are small institutions, both private and public, that could not navigate the combination of reduced enrollment when the cost of operations increased. It may lack empathy to suggest that perhaps the winnowing of the number of institutions could strengthen others but the students that would have attended these institutions went somewhere, and presumably to institutions superior in management if not in the quality of education offered.

The myth or reality of the state of higher education is most likely derived from the competing visions of what higher education should do. While some entities such as the Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute believe regaining public trust will come from renewal of conservative views, "Higher ed's own response to the problem, so far, has been to double down on mission" including reasserting "enduring principles" of education. While the debates continue, some institutions are sincerely attempting to recreate themselves but what is critical is for reinvention to address the right problems. If retention/graduation and insufficient focus on career concerns is what drives students and families in their decisions, rather than ideology as conservatives would have us to believe, then reinvention will be perhaps much more palatable to academics who reject the ideology challenge.