COVID-19, not the Invisible Hand, is undoing centuries of the market dynamics in higher education.
Ever since the Puritans established Harvard on September 8, 1636, higher education has been a growth industry. That is despite its rising cost and questionable ROI in terms of career mobility and lifetime job security.
Also, anyone who has been a heavy consumer of academia has experienced the power administrators and professors have. Since transcripts are forever, it was not wise to challenge the systems.
That was then.
Look at the numbers bouncing around for DefLanders. About 20% of those accepted for the Class of 2023 have deferred.
It had been assumed that the elite institutions of higher education would be immune from this falloff in enrollment - and revenue. That assumption, reports Brandon Busteed in FORBES, was wrong. At Harvard, 340 have gone DefLand or about 20% of those admitted. In addition, only 25% of those who could live on campus have accepted the offer.
That reality, in itself, has serious implications.
At the top of the list is the financial one. Of course, Harvard is not going to financially collapse. But others with less of an endowment might.
The next issue on the list is: What does this mean about the blind faith in education? Incidentally, that territory has already been covered in Boston Magazine. That was way back in January 2019. Even in the bucolic setting of New England, with all its old-line colleges and universities, institutions of higher education have been shuttering. Part of that was that parents and members of Gen Z were questioning the ROI.
The story here is not DefLand. Not per se. Not even the part about the high percentage opting not to attend Harvard.
The story is: What are those in DefLand doing instead? And will that "instead" trigger never enrolling in college?
The world is a big place. That's what the DefLanders might discover.
Some might get a management trainee job in the grocery industry, like it, stay on, and later pick up a college degree online, with tuition paid by the employer.
Others might become entrepreneurs.
Some might embrace altruism and participate in an global initiative to construct irritation systems in wastelands.
Will this shifting mindset about higher education seep into the ethos of professional schools, such as law, medicine, and business?
That could happen.
Prediction: A power outage throughout the entire Academic-Industrial Complex. Power consists of everything from wealth to ability to set the rules for the masses.
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