OPINION:
Enrollment is down nearly 40% at some universities, and even Ivy League acceptances aren’t enough to convince students the debt is worth it. On Politically Unstable, Kelly Sadler sits down with Campus Reform Editor-in-Chief Zachary Marschall to break down why the college bubble may finally be bursting.
[SADLER] You penned a column for our pages that was focusing on getting back to school and getting back to college. But enrollments this year are down, and you know that they’re down about 39 percent, whereas the average cost of a four-year education at a higher institution is averaging above $100,000. Can you explain to me why we’re seeing enrollments down? And is this the first time in years that this has happened, or is this an ongoing problem?
[MARSCHALL] This is a bubble bursting, and this has really been leading up for a while. We’re now seeing tuition at $100,000 at a lot of major universities. And that’s just unaffordable, as well as a mental block for a lot of families out there. And they’re realizing that college isn’t maybe worth $500,000 in total when you factor in the cost of living on top of tuition and board and rooming. So what we have right now is a longstanding trend, which is enrollment dipping. But what’s new this year is that it’s affecting bigger universities. So Penn State, Syracuse, Temple University, for example, are experiencing this trend that in years past was just reserved for the smaller colleges that struggle to compete with the bigger brand-name schools. And I think that just goes to show that no amount of reputation or prestige can shield these schools from the fact that the tuition is just crazy at this point and parents are opting out of it.
[SADLER] The Wall Street Journal just recently did a whole expose on Syracuse University and the fact that they consider themselves an Ivy League school, but they’re not an Ivy League school. And enrollment has dipped to the point of making their bottom line very uncomfortable. They just invested in brand new dorms for students that actually did not show up this year. And they’re struggling with how to maintain relevancy. I mean, is it some of these schools, isn’t it their own fault? I mean, a lot of these higher education schools that we’re talking about have embraced a woke culture that has alienated a lot of conservative parents. And they’ve also spent big on all of these facilities that are the gymnasiums, the pools, the new buildings, the dormitories. It’s like going to a luxury spa instead of going to get an education.
[MARSCHALL] I think you’re right. And I should just say for your viewers that I got my master’s degree at Syracuse. So I do have some familiarity with that campus. But, you know, what happened in Syracuse is also happening at different campuses across the country. So it’s not an outlier in this trend. So what you just said about campuses beautifying their facilities to make themselves more selective is absolutely true. We’re seeing that at colleges, you know, top 100 colleges in the country, have been doing it for years. Johns Hopkins, where Michael Bloomberg went to, is maybe the most conspicuous example of unnecessary beautification of college campuses that a bunch of 18-year-old students don’t really care about. It’s more for the parents than anything else in the looks of it on the website.
But what these universities have done, including Syracuse for the last couple of decades, is increasingly rely on foreign students to pay 100% tuition to cover the fact that you’re seeing out-of-control spending being almost covered by out-of-control rises in tuition. The problem with Syracuse this year is that the percentage of which they missed enrollment for fall 2026 was very small in the grand scheme of things but their budgets were so fragile that even such a small, maybe one percent miss on what their target was created this catastrophe that not only created for them to cancel dozens of programs but also to get that piece in the Wall Street Journal exposing their mismanagement.
The problem with Syracuse, for example, is that its American population cannot afford its tuition. So Syracuse increased the amount of money they’re spending every year on tuition discounts, which is the scholarships and financial aid they give to accepted students. They also gave additional discounts to students this year to encourage the numbers to go up. But students aren’t buying it. And I think that’s because for higher education as a whole, the value of the college diploma has gone down a lot. So even if you knock 20% off a $100,000 price tag, that’s still $80,000. That’s still way more than a lot of parents think is worth it, given the fact that so many employers now are saying, let’s not use four-year degree requirements on our job applications because it’s no longer a guarantee of success. And I think there are other schools that are maybe in a better financial situation than Syracuse for the moment, but that’s not inevitable. I mean, Princeton University just announced financial cuts this month because of its own struggle. So if Princeton’s struggling, then there aren’t that many weeks or months left before we start seeing other schools kind of follow Syracuse and Penn State’s example.
Watch the video for the full conversation.
Read more: Higher education needs Apple-style innovation
Click here for more Politically Unstable
Please read our comment policy before commenting.